ABERBBEN SHIRE 





The CamhHd^e. Urti-vcrsitv I^fss 




CojyrigH. Gta^ge IhOip Jt Son,Z^ 



CAMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES 
SCOTLAND 

General Editor: W. Murison, M.A. 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

SontlOU : FETTER LANE, E.G. 

C. F. CLAY, Manager 




euinluiiglr. loo. PRINCES STREET 

errlin: A. ASHER AND CO. 

UfipMci: F. A. BROCKHAUS 

llfUj gork: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

Bombao nnt) iTnlcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 



All rights reseriYil 



Cambridge County Geographies 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



by 



ALEXANDER JACKIE, M.A. 

Late Examiner in English, Aberdeen University, and 
author of Nature Knoivledge in Modern Poetry 



With Maps, Diagrams and Illustrations 



Cambridge : 

at the University Press 

191 1 






Cambritigr: 

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. 
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 



1) b .!> ~1 4 4 
1 -»- 



CONTENTS 



13- 
14. 

15- 



County and Shire. The Origin of Aberdeenshire 

General Characteristics 

Size. Shape. Boundaries 

Surface, Soil and General Features . 

Watershed. Rivers. Lochs . 

Geology ...... 

Natural History .... 

Round the Coast .... 

Weather and Climate. Temperature. 
Winds ..... 

The People — Race, Language, Population 

Agriculture ..... 

The Granite Industry 

Other Industries. Paper, Wool, Combs 

Fisheries ...... 

Shipping and Trade 



UCCllMUl C 


1 
4 




10 




15 




20 




35 




43 




52 


Rainfall 






64 


1 


70 




76 




83 




89 




94 




102 



VI 



CONTENTS 



1 6. History of the County 

17. Antiquities — Circles, Sculptured Stones, 

Forts ...... 



Architecture — (a) Ecclesiastical 
Architecture — (1^) Castellated . 
Architecture — (c) Municipal 
Architecture — (d) Domestic 
Communications — Roads, Railways . 
Administration and Divisions . 

24. The Roll of Honour 

25. The Chief Towns and Villages of Aberdeenshire 



23 



Cra 



PAGE 
105 

112 
121 

160 
166 

170 
178 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



file lone Kirkyard, Gamrie . 
Town House, Old Aberdeen . 
Consumption Dyke at Kingswells 
The Punch Bowl, Linn of Quoich, Braeniar 



Pennan, looking N.W. Show 

Troup 
Loch Avon and Ben-Macdhui 
Benachie .... 
Linn of Dee, Braeniar 
Old bridge of Dee, Invercauld 
View from old bridge of Invercau 
Falls of Muick, Ballater . 
Birch Tree at Braemar . 
Fir Trees at Braemar 
The Don, looking towards St Mad 
Brig o' Balgownie, Aberdeen 
Loch Muick, near Ballater 
Loch Callater, Braemar 
Loch of Skene 
Deer in time of snow 
The Dun buy Rock . 
Girdleness Lighthouse 



old and new houses of 



ar Cathedral 



PAGE 

3 
5 

7 
9 



1 + 
19 

2 I 

22 
23 

26 
28 
30 
31 
32 
34 
36 
47 
48 
53 



Vlll 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Sand Hills at Cruden Bay 

" The Pot," Bullers o' Budian 

Buchan Ness Lighthouse 

Kinnaird Lighthouse, Fraserburgh . 

Entrance to Lord Pitsligo's Cave, Rosehe 

Aberdour Shore, looking N.W. 

Inverey near Braemar 

Aberdeen-Angus Bull 

Aberdeen Shorthorn Bull 

Granite Quarry, Kemnay 

Granite Works, Aberdeen 

Making smoked iTaddocks, Aberdeen 

Fish Market, Aberdeen . 

Fishwives, The Green, Aberdeen 

North Harbour, Peterhead 

Herring boats at Fraserburgh . 

Fishing Fleet going out, Aberdeen . 

At the docks, Aberdeen . 

White Cow Wood Cairn Circle ; View from the SAV. 

Palaeolithic Flint Implement . 

Neolithic Celt of Greenstone . 

Stone at Logie, in the Garioch 

" Picts " or " Eirde House " at Migvie, Aberdeensh 

Loch Kinnord ..... 

From The Book of Detr . 

St Machar Cathedral, Old Aberdeen 

St Machar Cathedral (interior) 

King's College, Aberdeen University 

East and West Churches, Aberdeen 

Kildrummy Castle .... 

The Old House of Gight 

Craigievar Castle, Donside 

Crathes Castle, Kincardineshire' 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



IX 



Castle P'r;iser ....... 

Fyvie Castle, South Front .... 

Municipal Buildinj^s, Aberdeen, and Town Cross 
Marischal College, Aberdeen .... 

Union Terrace and Gardens, before widening- of B 

Grammar School, Aberdeen 

Gordon's College, Aberdeen 

Bridge of Don, from Balgownie 

Old Bridge of Dee, Aberdeen . 

Balmoral Castle 

Cluny Castle . 

Haddo House . 

Midmar Castle 

Spittal of Glenshee 

Professor Thomas Reid, D.D. 

The Old Grammar School, Schoolhill 

Birsemore Loch and Craigendinnie, Aboyne 

Mar Castle .... 

Ballater, view from Pannanich 

Braemar from Craig Coynach 

The Doorway, Huntly Castle 

The Bass, Inverurie 

The White Horse on Mormond Hill 

Diagrams ..... 



•\d"e 



PAGE 
[42 

44 
46 

47 
49 
50 
51 
52 
53 
55 
57 
58 
59 
61 

7 5 
7 9 
82 

83 
84 
86 
88 
89 
93 
95 



MAPS 
Orographical Map of Aberdeenshire 
Geological Map of Aberdeenshire . 
Rainfall Map of Scotland 



. Front Cot'er 

. Back Cot'er 

■ 65 



The illustrations on pp. 3, 12, 62, 63 are from photographs 
by W. Norrie; those on pp. 5, 9, 14, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 
30, 31, 32, 34. 36, 48, 53. 56, 58, 60, 61, 67, 86, 93, 97, 98, 99, 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 

loo, loi, 103, 120, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 140, 141, 144, 146, 
147, 149) 150, 151, 152, 153. 155, 157, 158, 159) 161, 182, 183, 
184, 186, 188 and 189, are from photographs by J. Valentine and 
Sons ; that on p. 7 from a photograph by J. Watt ; that on 
p. 47 from a photograph by Dr W. Brown ; that on p. 84 from 
a photograph by A. Gordon; that on p. 193 from a pliotograph 
by A. Gray. 

Thanks are due to W. Diithie, Esq., Collynie, for permission 
to reproduce the ilhistration on p. 82; to J. M'^G. Petrie, Esq., 
Glen-Logie, for permission to reproduce that on p. 81 ; to Messrs 
T. and R. Annan and Sons, for permission to reproduce that on 
p. 175; to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for permission 
to reproduce those on pp. 1 1 3 and 118; and to Alexander 
Walker, Jr., Esq., Aberdeen, for permission to reproduce that 
on p. 179. 



I. County and Shire. The Origin of 
Aberdeenshire. 

The term "shire," which means a division (Anglo- 
Saxon sciran : to cut or divide), has in Scotland practically 
the same meaning as " county." In most cases the two 
names are interchangeable. Yet we do not say Orkney- 
shire nor Kirkcudbrightshire. Kirkcudbright is a stewartr^ 
and not a county, but in regard to the others we call 
them with equal readiness shires or counties. County 
means originally the district ruled by a Count, the 
Norman equivalent of Earl. It is said that Aberdeenshire 
is the result of a combination of two counties, Buchan 
and Mar, representing the territory under the rule of the 
Earl of Buchan and the Earl of Mar. The distinction is 
in effect what we mean to-day by East Aberdeenshire and 
West Aberdeenshire ; and the local students of Aberdeen 
University when voting for their Lord Rector by 
"nations" are still classified as belonging to either the 
Buchan nation or the Mar nation according to their place 
of birth. 

The counties, tlien, are certain areas which it is 
convenient for political and administrative purposes to 

M. A. I 



2 ABERDEENSHIRE 

divide the country into for the better and more convenient 
management of local and internal affairs. To-day- 
Scotland has thirty-three of these divisions. In a public 
ordinance dated 1305, twenty-five counties are named. 
They would seem to have been first defined early in the 
twelfth century, but as a matter of fact nothing very 
definite is known, either as to the date of their origin or 
as to the principles which regulated the making of their 
geographical boundaries. It is certain, however, that the 
county divisions were in Scotland an introduction from 
England. The term came along with the people who 
were flocking into Scotland from the south. The lines 
were drawn for what seemed political convenience and 
no doubt they were suited to the times. To-day the 
boundaries seem on occasion somewhat erratic. Banchory, 
for example, is in Kincardineshire, while Aboyne and 
Ballater on the same river bank and on the same line of 
road and railway are in Aberdeenshire. If the carving 
were to be done over again in the twentieth century, 
more consideration would probably be given to the railway 
lines. 

A commission of 1891 did actually rearrange the 
boundaries. Of the parishes partly in Aberdeen and 
partly in Banff, some were transferred wholly to Aber- 
deen (Gartly, Glass, New Machar, Old Deer and 
St Fergus), while others were placed in Banffshire 
(Cabrach, Gamrie, Inverkeithny, Alvah and Rothiemay). 
How it happened that certain parts of adjoining counties 
were planted like islands in the heart of Aberdeenshire 
may be understood by reference to such a case as that of 



COUNTY AND SHIRE 3 

St Fergus. A large part of this parish belonged to the 
Cheynes, who being hereditary sheriffs of Banffshire were 
naturally desirous of having their patrimonial estates under 
their own legal jurisdiction, and were influential enough 
to be able to stereotype this anomaly. This explains the 
place of St Fergus in Banffshire ; it is now very properly 
a part of Aberdeenshire. 




The lone Kirkyard, Gamrie 

The county took its name from the chief town — 
Aberdeen- — which is clearly Celtic in origin and means 
the town at the mouth of either the Dee or the Don. 
Both interpretations are possible ; but the fact that the 
Latin form of the word has always been Abcrdon'ia and 
Aberdonem'n^ favours the Don as the naming river. As a 
matter of fact, Old Aberdeen, though lying at no great 

I — 2 



4 ABERDEENSHIRE 

distance from the bank of the Don, can hardly be said to 
be associated with Donmouth, whereas a considerable 
population must from a remote period have been located 
at the mouth of the Dee. Whatever interpretation is 
accepted, it was this city — the only town in the district 
conspicuous for population and resources — that gave its 
name to the county as a whole. 

The whole region between the river Dee and the 
river Spey, comprising the two counties of Banff and 
Aberdeen, forms a natural province. There is no natural, 
or recognisable line of demarcation between the two 
counties. Their fortunes have been one. The river 
Deveron might conceivably have been chosen as the 
dividing line, but in practice it is so only to a limited 
extent. The whole district, which if invaded was never 
really conquered by the Romans, made one of the seven 
Provinces of what was called Pictland in the early middle 
ages, and it long continued to assert for itself a semi- 
independent political existence. 



2. General Characteristics. 

The county is almost purely agricultural. It has 
always enjoyed a certain measure of maritime activity and 
of recent years the fishing industry, especially at Aber- 
deen, has made immense progress, but as a whole the 
area is a well-cultivated district. Round the coast and 
on all the lower levels tillage is the rule. In the interior 
the level of the land rises rapidly, and ploughed fields 




Town House, Old Aberdeen 



6 ABERDEEXSHIRE 

give place to desolate moors and bare mountain heights in 
which agriculture is an impossible industry. The surface 
of the lowland parts, now in regular cultivation, was 
originally very rough and rock-strewn. It was covered 
with erratic blocks of stone, gneiss and granite (locally 
called "heathens"), left by the melting of the ice fields 
which o\ erspread all the north-east of Scotland during the 
Ice xA.ge. These stones have been cleared from the fields 
and utilised as boundary walls. Some idea of the extra- 
ordinary energ\ and excessive labour necessary to clear 
the land for tillage may be gathered from a glance at the 
" consumption " dvke at Kingswells, some five miles 
from Aberdeen. This solid rampart stretches like a great 
break-water across nearlv half a mile of country, through 
a dip to the south of the Brimmond Hill. It is five or 
six feet in height and twenty to thirty in breadth and 
contains thousands of tons of troublesome boulders 
gathered from the surrounding slopes. The disposal of 
these blocks was a serious problem. It has been solved 
by this rampart. In other parts the stones were built up 
into enclosing walls and now serve the double purpose of 
enclosing the fields and providing a certain amount of 
shelter for crops and cattle. The slopes of the Brimmond 
Hill are in certain parts still uncleared and the appearance 
of these areas helps us to realise what this section of the 
country looked like before the enterprising agriculturist 
braced himself to prepare the surface for the use ot the 
plough. 

The soil, except in the alluvial deposits on the banks 
of the Don and the Ythan, is not of great natural fertility, 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 7 

yet by the exceptional industry of the inhabitants and 
their enterprise as a farming community it has been raised 
to a high degree of producti\'eness. The county now 
enjoys a well but hard earned reputation for progressive 
agriculture. Notably so in regard to cattle-breeding. It 




Consumption Dyke at Kingswells 



is the home of a breed of cattle called Aberdeenshire, 
black and polled, but it is just as famous for its strain of 
shorthorns which have been bred with skill and insight 
for more than a century. In spite, then, of its inferior 
soil, its wayward climate and its northern latitude, the 
inborn stubbornnesss and determination of its people have 



8 ABERDEENSHIRE 

made it a great and prosperous agricultural region and 
only those who on a September day have seen from the 
top of Benachie the undulating plains of Buchan glitter- 
ing golden in the sun can realise what a transformation 
has been effected on a barren and stony land by the 
industry of man. 

The most easterly of the Scottish counties, it abuts 
like a prominent shoulder into the North Sea. It has, 
therefore, a considerable sea-board partly flat and sandy, 
partly rocky and precipitous. The population of the 
numerous villages dotted along this coast used in time 
past to devote themselves to fishing, but the tendency 
of recent years has been to concentrate this industry in 
the larger towns, Fraserburgh, Peterhead and Aberdeen. 

Other industries there are few. Next to agriculture 
and fishing comes granite, which is the only mineral 
worthy of mention found in the county. It is the 
prevailing rock of the district and is quarried to a con- 
siderable extent in various parts. A large part of the 
population earn their living by this industry, and Aberdeen 
granite, like Aberdeen beef and Aberdeen fish, is a well- 
known product and travels far. Paper and wool are also 
manufactured but only on a moderate scale. 

There is only one other general feature of the county 
that deserves mention and that is its attractiveness as a 
health resort. The banks of the Dee, more especially in 
its upper regions, is a much frequented holiday haunt ; 
and every summer and autumn Braemar, Ballater and 
Aboyne are crowded with visitors from all parts of the 
country. The late Queen Victoria no doubt gave the 



10 ABERDEENSHIRE 

impetus to this fashion. Her majesty at an early period 
of her reign bought the estate of Balmoral, half-way 
between Ballater and Braemar, and having built a royal 
castle there made it her practice to reside for a large part 
of every year amongst the Deeside hills. Apart from this 
royal advertisement the high altitude of the district, and 
its dry, bracing climate, as well as its romantic mountain 
scenery, have proved permanently attractive. Here are 
Loch-na-gar (sung by Byron), Ben-Macdhui, Brae-riach, 
Ben-na-Buird, Ben-Avon and other Bens, all of them 
4000, or nearly 4c 00, feet above sea-level, and all of 
them imposing and impressive in their bold and massive 
forms. These mountains supply elements of grandeur 
which exercise a fascination upon people who habitually 
live in a flat country, and Braemar is not likely to lose its 
merited popularity. 



3. Size. Shape. Boundaries. 

Aberdeenshire is one of the large counties in area, 
standing fifth in Scotland. Although Inverness contains 
more than twice the number of square miles in Aberdeen- 
shire, its population is far behind that of Aberdeen, which 
in this respect is the third county in Scotland. Its 
greatest length from N.E. to S.W. is 102 miles; its 
greatest breadth from N.W. to S.E. is 50. The coast 
line measures 65 miles and is little indented. The whole 
area of the county is 1970 square miles, or 1,261,971 
acres, of which 6400 are water. 



SIZE SHAPE BOUNDARIES 11 

In shape the county might be likened to a pear lying 
obliquely on its side, the narrow stalk-end being in the 
mountains, while the rounded bulging head is the north- 
eastern sea-board. The flattest portion is the region lying 
north of the Ythan, called Buchan, and even this can 
hardly be called flat, for the level is broken by Mormond 
Hill, near Strichen, rising to a height of 8lO feet. All 
the way to Pennan Head the contour of the land is 
irregularly wavy. The narrower portion in the S.W., 
called Mar, is entirely mountainous, and midway between 
these two extremes lie the Garioch and Formartin — 
districts which are undulating in character. A crescent 
line drawn from Aberdeen to TurrifF, the convex side 
being to the S.W., would divide the county into two 
parts, which might be described as lowland and highland. 
The lowland portion contains the lower valley of the Don 
as far up as Inverurie, the valley of the Ythan and all the 
remaining northern part of the county. South of this 
imaginary line the ground rises in ridge after ridge until 
it culminates in the lofty Grampian range of the Cairn- 
gorms. The bipartite character of the county, which is 
reflected in the occupation and pursuits as in the character 
and language of the two populations, is of some import- 
ance, and yet must not be pressed too far, because the 
population in the one half is practically insignificant as 
compared with that of the other. It follows that when 
Aberdeenshire men and Aberdeenshire ways are referred 
to, nine times out of ten it is the lowland part of the 
county that is in question. 

The boundaries are, on the east, the North Sea, and 




c 



SIZE SHAPE BOUNDARIES 13 

on the north as far west as Pennan Head, the Moray 
Firth. There Banffshire and Aberdeenshire meet. From 
that point inland a wavy boundary separates the two 
counties, the Deveron being for part of the way the 
dividing line. Above Rothiemay the boundary mounts 
the watershed between Deveronside and Speyside, and 
keeping irregularly to this line past the Buck of the 
Cabrach, and the upper waters of the Don, reaches Ben- 
Avon. Thence the line moves on to Ben-Macdhui with 
Loch Avon on the right, and at Brae-riach Banffshire 
ceases to be the boundary. For several miles, almost due 
south in direction, Inverness comes in as the county on 
the west. The southern boundary touches three counties, 
Perth, Forfar and Kincardine. At Cairn Ealar, which is 
the angle of turning and almost a right angle, the direc- 
tion changes and runs east alongside of Perthshire to 
the Cairnwell Road, and crossing this leaves Perthshire 
at Glas Maol, where it touches Forfarshire. The line 
continues east but with a trend to the north, passing on 
the left Glenmuick, Glentanar and the Forest of Birse, 
in which the Feugh takes its rise. On the top of Mount 
Battock three counties meet, Forfar, Aberdeen and 
Kincardine. Henceforth we are alongside of Kincardine- 
shire and the line bends north-west with a semi-circular 
sweep round Banchory-Ternan and the Hill of Fare to 
Crathes, from a little beyond which, the bed of the Dee 
becomes the boundary line all the way to Aberdeen. In 
all this area of high ground the line of march is practically 
the watershed throughout, marking off the drainage area 
of the Don and the Dee from that of the Deveron and 



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SIZE SHAPE BOUNDARIES 15 

the Avon (a tributary of the Spey) on the one hand, and 
from that of the Tay and the two Esks (south and north) 
on the other. 



4. Surface, Soil and General Features. 

From what has been already said of the contour of 
the county it may be inferred that its surface is extremely 
varied. Every variety of highland and lowland country 
is to be found within its limits. Near the sea-board the 
land is gently undulating, never quite flat but not rising 
to any great height till Benachie (1440) is reached. 
From that point onwards, whether up Deveronside or 
Donside or Deeside, the mountains rise higher and higher 
till the Cairngorms, which comprise some of the loftiest 
mountains in the kingdom, are reached. At that point 
we are more than half-way across Scotland, and in reality 
are nearer to the Atlantic than to the North Sea. Less 
than half the land is under cultivation. Woods and 
plantations occupy barely a sixth part of the uncultivated 
area. The rest is mountain and moor, yielding a scanty 
pasturage for sheep and red-deer, and on the lower 
elevations for cattle. 

In the fringe round the sea-board no trees will grow. 
It is only when several miles removed from exposure to 
the fierce blasts that come from the North Sea that they 
begin to thrive, but the whole Buchan district is con- 
spicuously treeless. Almost every acre is cultivated and 
the succession of fields covered with oats, turnips and 



16 ABERDEENSHIRE 

grass, which fill up the landscape as with a great patch- 
work, is broken only here and there by belts of trees 
round some manor-house or farm-steading. Except in a 
few places the scenery of this lowland portion is devoid 
of picturesque interest, yet the woods of Pitfour and of 
Strichen, the policies of Haddo House near Methlick, the 
quiet silvan beauty of Fyvie, which more resembles an 
English than a Scotch village, the wooded ridge that 
overlooks the Ythan at the Castle of Gight, are charming 
spots that serve by contrast to accentuate the general 
tameness of this lower area. 

In the higher region, the south-western portions of 
the county, agriculture is, to some extent, practised, but 
it is necessarily confined to narrow strips in the valleys of 
the rivers. The hills, which are rarely wooded, and that 
only up to fifteen hundred feet above sea-level, are 
rounded in shape, not sharp and jagged. They are, where 
composed of granite, invariably clothed in heather and 
are occasionally utilised for the grazing of sheep, but this 
is becoming less common, and year by year larger areas 
are depleted of sheep for the better protection of grouse. 
All the heathery hills up to 2000 feet are grouse moors. 
Throughout the summer these display the characteristic 
brown tint of the heather — a tint which gives place in 
early August to a rich purple when the heather breaks 
into flower. Long strips of the heather-mantle are 
systematically burned to the ground every spring. Such 
blackened patches scoring with their irregular outlines the 
sides of the hills in April and May give a certain amount 
of variety to the prevailing tint of brown. They serve a 



SURFACE SOIL GENERAL FEATURES 17 

very useful purpose. The young grouse shelter in the 
long and unburnt heather but frequent the cleared areas 
for the purpose of feeding on the tender young shoots 
which spring up from the blackened roots of the burned 
plants. 

Further inland still, where the hills rise to a greater 
height, they become deer-forests. As a rule these forests 
are without trees and are often rockstrewn, bare and 
grassless. It is only in the sheltered corries or by the 
sides of some sparkling burn, that natural grasses spring 
up in sufficient breadth to provide summer pasturage for 
the red-deer, which are carefully protected for sporting 
purposes. Here too the ptarmigan breed in considerable 
numbers. The grouse moors command higher rents than 
would be profitable for a sheep-farmer to give for the 
grazing, and every year prior to the I2th of August, 
when grouse-shooting begins, there is an influx of sports- 
men from the south, to enjoy this particular form of sport. 
The red grouse is indigenous to Scotland ; it seems to 
find its natural habitat amongst the heather, where in 
spite of occasional failures in the nesting season, and in 
spite of many weeks' incessant shooting, it thrives and 
multiplies. Deer-stalking begins somewhat later ; in a 
warm and favourable summer, the stags are in condition 
early in September. This sport is confined to a com- 
parative few. 

The highest mountain in the Braemar district is Ben- 
Macdhui (4296 feet). A few others are over 4000 — 
Brae-riach and Cairntoul. Ben-na-Buird and Ben-Avon, 
which last is notable for the numerous tors or warty knots 

M. A. 2 



18 ABERDEENSHIRE 

along its sky-line, are just under 4000 feet. Loch-na-gar, 
a few miles to the east and a conspicuous backgrovmd to 
Balmoral Castle, is 3789. Byron called it "the most 
sublime and picturesque of the Caledonian Alps," and 
Queen Victoria writing from Balmoral in 1850 described 
it as " the jewel of all the mountains here." Its contour 
lines, which are somewhat more sharply curved than is 
usual in the Deeside hills, and the well-balanced distribu- 
tion of its great mass make it easily recognised from a 
wide distance. This partly explains the pre-eminence 
which notwithstanding its inferiority of height it un- 
doubtedly possesses. Due north from Ballater are 
Morven (2880) and Culblean, and due south is Mount 
Keen ; a little cast and on the boundary line of three 
counties is Mount Battock. Perhaps the most prominent 
hill, and the one most frequently visible to the great 
majority of Aberdeenshire folks, is Benachie, which stands 
as a fitting outpost of the vast regiment of hills. It 
stands apart and although only 1440 feet in height is an 
unfailing landmark from all parts of Buchan, from 
Aberdeen, from Donside, and even from Deveronside. 
Its well-defined outline and projecting " mither tap " 
render it an object of interest from far and near, while 
the presence or absence of cloud on its head and shoulders 
serves as a barometric index to the state of the weather. 



20 ABERDEENSHIRE 



5. Watershed. Rivers. Lochs. 

As we have already pointed out, the watershed co- 
incides to a large extent with the boundary line of the 
county. The lean of Aberdeenshire is from west to east 
so that all the rivers flow in an easterly direction to the 
North Sea. On the west and north-west of the highest 
mountain ridges, the slope of the land is to the north-east, 
and the Spey with its several tributaries carries the rainfall 
to the heart of the Moray Firth. 

The chief river of the county is the Dee. It is the 
longest, the fullest-bodied, the most picturesque of all 
Aberdeenshire waters. Taking its rise in two small 
streams which drain the slopes of Brae-riach, it grows 
in volume and breadth, till, after an easterly course of 
nearly 100 miles, it reaches the sea at Aberdeen. The 
head-stream is the Garrachorry burn, which flows through 
the cleft between Brae-riach and Cairntoul. A more 
romantic spot for the cradle of a mighty river could 
hardly be found. The mountain masses rise steep, grim 
and imposing — on one side Cairntoul conical in shape, 
on the other Brae-riach broad and massive, a picture of 
solidity and immobility. The Dee well is 4060 feet 
above sea-level and 1300 above the stream which drains 
the eastern side of the Larig — the high pass to Strathspey. 
As it emerges from the Larig, it is a mere mountain 
torrent but presently it is joined at right angles by the 
Geldie from the south-west, and the united waters move 
eastward through a wild glen of rough and rugged slopes 



WATERSHED RIVERS LOCHS 



21 



and ragged, gnarled Scots firs to the Linn of Dee, 6|- miles 
above Braemar. There is no great fall at the Linn, but 
here the channel of the river becomes suddenly contracted 
by great masses of rock and the water rushes through a 




Linn of Dee, Braemar 



narrow gorge only four feet wide. The pool below is 
deep and black and much overhung with rocks. For 
300 yards stretches this natural sluice, formed by rocks 
with rugged sides and jagged bottom, the water racing 
past in small cascades. The river is here spanned by 



22 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



a handsome granite bridge opened in 1857 ^Y Queen 
Victoria. 

As the river descends to Braemar, the glen gradually 
widens out, and the open, gravelly, and sinuous character 
of the bed, which is a feature from this point onwards, is 
very marked. Pool and stream, stream and pool succeed 



9i^ 








Old bridge of Dee, Invercauld 



one another in shingh' bends, clean, sparkling and beauti- 
ful. At Braemar the bed is 1066 feet above sea-level. 
Below In\'ercauld the ri\er is crossed by the picturesque 
old bridge built by General Wade, when he made his 
well-known roads through the Highlands after the rebel- 
lion of 1745. Here the Garrawalt, a rough and obstructed 



24 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



tributary, joins the main river. From Invercauld past 
Balmoral Castle to Ballater is sixteen miles. Here the 
bottom is at times rocky, at times filled with big rough 
stones, at other times shingly but never deep. The aver- 
age depth is only four feet, and the normal pace under 
ordinary conditions 3^ miles an hour. From Ballater, 




Falls of Muick, Ballater 



where the river is joined by the Gairn and the Muick, 
the Dee maintains the same character to Aboyne and 
Banchory, where it is joined by the Feugh from the 
forest of Birse. Just above Banchory is Cairnton, where 
the water supply for the town of Aberdeen, amounting 
on an average to 7 or 8 million gallons a day, is taken off. 
The course of the river near the mouth was diverted 



WATERSHED RIVERS LOCHS 25 

some 40 years ago to the south, at great expense, by the 
Town Council, and in this way a considerable area of 
land was reclaimed for feuing purposes. The spanning 
of the river at this point by the Victoria bridge, which 
superseded a ferry-boat, has led to the rise of a moderately 
sized town (Torry) on the south or Kincardine side of the 
river. 

The scenery of Deeside, all the way from the Cairn- 
gorms to the old Bridge of Dee, two miles west of the 
centre of the city, is varied and attractive. It is well- 
wooded throughout; in the upper parts the birch, which 
would seem to be indigenous in the district, adds to the 
beauty of the hill-sides, while the clean pebbly bed of the 
river and its swift, dashing flow delight the eyes of those 
who are familiar only with sluggish and mud-stained 
waters. It is not surprising therefore that the district 
has attained the vogue it now enjoys. 

The Don runs parallel to the Dee for a great part 
of its course, but it is a much shorter river, measuring 
only 78 miles. It rises at the very edge of the county 
close to the point where the Avon emerges from Glen 
Avon and turns north to join the Spey. It drains a valley 
which is only ten or fifteen miles separated from the 
valley of the larger river. In its upper reaches it some- 
what resembles Deeside, being quite highland in character; 
but lower down the river loses its rapidity, becoming slug- 
gish and winding. Strathdon, as the upper area is called, 
is undoubtedly picturesque, but it lacks the bolder features 
of Deeside, being less wooded and graced with few hills 
on the grand scale. It has not, therefore, become a popular 




Birch Tree at Braemar 



WATERSHED RIVERS LOCHS 27 

summer resort, but its banks form the richest alluvial 
agricultural land in the county — 

A mile o' Don's worth twa o' Dee 
Except for sahuon, stone and tree. 

This old couplet is so far correct. The Dee is a great 
salmon river, providing more first-class salmon angling 
than any other river of Scotland, while the Don, though 
owing to its muddy bottom a stream excellent beyond 
measure and unsurpassed for brown trout, is not now, 
partly owing to obstruction and pollution, a great salmon 
river. But the agricultural land on Donside, which for 
the most part is rich deep loam, about Kintore, Inverurie 
and the vale of Alford is much more kindly to the farmer 
than the light gravelly soil of Deeside, which is so apt to 
be bvirnt up in a droughty summer. In the matter of 
stone, things have changed since the couplet took shape. 
The granite quarries of Donside are now superior to any 
on the Dee; but the trees of Deeside still hold their own, 
the Scots firs of Ballochbuie forest, west of Balmoral, 
being the finest specimens of their kind in the north. 

The nether-Don has been utilised for more than a 
century as a driving power for paper and wool mills. 
Of these there is a regular succession for several miles 
of the river's course, from Bucksburn to within a mile 
of Old Aberdeen. After heavy rains or a spring thaw 
the lower reaches of the river, especially from Kintore 
downwards, are apt to be flooded, and in spite of embank- 
ments which ha\'e been erected along the river's course, 
few years pass without serious damage being done to the 



WATERSHED RIVERS LOCHS 29 

crops in low-lying fields. Some parts of Donside scenery, 
notably at Monymusk (called Paradise), and at Seaton 
House just below the Cathedral of Old Aberdeen, and 
before the river passes through the single Gothic arch 
of the ancient and historical bridge of Balgownie, are very 
fine — wooded and picturesque, and beloved of more than 
one famous artist. 

The next river is the Ythan, which, rising in the low 
hills of the Culsalmond district and flowing through the 
parish of Auchterless and past the charming hamlet of 
Fyvie, creeps somewhat sluggishly through Methlick and 
Lord Aberdeen's estates to Ellon. A few miles below 
Ellon it forms a large tidal estuary four miles in length — 
a notable haunt of sea-trout, the most notable on the east 
coast. The river is only 37 miles long. It is slow and 
winding with deep pools and few rushing streams; more- 
over its waters have never the clear, sparkling quality 
of the silvery Dee. Yet at Fyvie and at Gight it has 
picturesque reaches that redeem it from a uniformity of 
tameness. 

The Ugie, a small stream of 20 miles in length, is 
tfie only other river worthy of mention. It joins the 
sea north of the town of Peterhead. In character it 
closely resembles the Ythan, having the same kind of 
deep pools and the same sedge-grown banks. 

The Deveron is more particularly a Banffshire river, 
yet in the Huntly district, it and its important tributary 
the Bogie (which gives its name to the well-known his- 
toric region called Strathbogie) are wholly in Aberdeen- 
shire. The Deveron partakes of the character of the Dee 




o 



WATERSHED 3 RIVERS LOCHS 31 

and the character of the Don. It is neither so sparkling 
and rapid as the one nor so slow and muddy as the other. 
Around Huntly and in the locality of Turriff and Eden, 
where it is the houndary between the counties, it has 
some charmingly beautiful reaches. Along its banks is 




Brig o' Balgownie, Aberdeen 

a succession of stately manor-houses, embosomed in trees, 
and these highly embellished demesnes enhance its natural 
charms. 

Lakes are few in Aberdeenshire, and such as exist are 
not specially remarkable. The most interesting historically 
are the Deeside Lochs Kinnord and Davan which are 



WATERSHED RIVERS LOCHS 33 

held by antiquarians to be the seat of an ancient city 
Devana — the town of the two lakes. In pre-historic 
times there dwelt on the shores of these lakes as also in 
the valleys that converge upon them a tribe of people 
who built forts, and lake retreats, made oak canoes, and 
by means of palisades of the same material created arti- 
ficial islands. The canoes which have been recovered 
from the bed of the loch are hollowed logs thirty feet in 
length. Other relics — a bronze vessel and a bronze spear- 
head, together with many beams of oak — have been fished 
up, all proving the existence of an early Pictish settle- 
ment. 

Besides these, there is in the same district — but south- 
east of Loch-na-gar, another and larger lake called Loch 
Muick. From it flows the small river Muick — a tributary 
of the Dee, which it joins above Ballater. South-west of 
Loch-na-gar is Loch Callater, which drains into the Clunie, 
another Dee tributary, which joins the main river at Cas- 
tleton of Braemar. On the lower reaches of the Dee are 
the Loch of Park or Drum, and the Loch of Skene, both 
of which drain into the Dee. Both are much frequented 
by water-fowl of various kinds. 

The Loch of Strathbeg, which lies on the east coast 
not far from Rattray Head, is a brackish loch of some 
interest. Two hundred years ago, we are told, it was 
in direct communication with the sea and small vessels 
were able to enter it. Li a single night a furious easterly 
gale blew away a sand-hill between the Castle-hill of 
Rattray and the sea, with the result that the wind-driven 
sand formed a sand-bar where formerly there was a clear 

M. A. 3 



WATERSHED RIVERS LOCHS 35 

water-way. Since that day the loch has been land-locked 
and though still slightly brackish may be regarded as an 
inland loch. 

6. Geology. 

Geology is the study of the rocks or the substances 
of which the earthy crust of a district is composed. 
Rocks are of two sorts: (i) those due to the action of 
heat, called igneous, (2) those formed and deposited by 
water, called aqueous. When the earth was a molten 
ball, it cooled at the surface, but every now and again 
liquid portions were ejected from cracks and weak places. 
The same process is seen in the eruptions of Mount 
Vesuvius, which sends out streams of liquid lava that 
gradually cools and forms hard rock. Such are igneous 
rocks. But all the forces of nature are constantly at 
work disintegrating the solid land; frost, rain, the action 
of rivers and the atmosphere wear down the rocks; and 
the tiny particles are carried during floods to the sea, 
where they are deposited as mud or sand-beds laid flat 
one on the top of the other like sheets of paper. These 
are aqueous rocks. The layers are afterwards apt to be 
tilted up on end or at various angles owing to the con- 
tortions of the earth's crust, through pressure in particular 
directions. When so tilted they may rise above water 
and immediately the same process that made them now 
begins to unmake them. They too may in time be so 
worn away that only fragments of them are left whereby 
we may interpret their history. 

3—2 



GEOLOGY 37 

To these may be added a third kind of rock called 
rnetamorphtc^ or rocks so altered by the heat and pressure 
of other rocks intruding upon them, that they lose their 
original character and become metamorphosed. They 
may be either sedimentary, laid down originally by water, 
or they may be igneous, but in both cases they are entirely 
changed or modified in appearance and structure by the 
treatment they have suffered. 

The geology of Aberdeenshire is almost entirely con- 
cerned with igneous and metamorphic rocks. The whole 
back-bone of the county is granite which has to some 
extent been rubbed smooth by glacial action ; but in a 
great part of the county the granite gives place to meta- 
morphic rocks, gneiss, schist, and quartzite. A young 
geologist viewing a deep cutting in the soil about Aber- 
deen finds that the material consists of layers of sand, 
gravel, clay, which are loosely piled together all the way 
down to the solid granite. This is the glacial drift, or 
boulder clay, a much later formation than the granite 
and a legacy of what is called the great Ice Age. Far 
back in a time before the dawn of history all the north- 
east of Scotland was buried deep under a vast snow-sheet. 
The snow consolidated into glaciers just as in Switzerland 
to-day, and the glaciers thus formed worked their way 
down the valleys, carrying a great quantity of loose 
material along with them. When a warmer time came, 
the ice melted and all the sand and boulders mixed up 
in the ice were liberated and sank as loose deposits on 
the land. This is the boulder clay which in and around 
Aberdeen is the usual subsoil. It consists of rough, 



88 ABERDEENSHIRE 

half-rounded pebbles, large and small, of clay, sand, 
and shingle, and makes a very cold and unkindly soil, 
being difficult to drain properly and slow to take in 
warmth. 

Below this boulder clay are the fundamental rocks. 
At Aberdeen these are pure granite; but in other parts 
of the county they are, as we have said, metamorphic, 
that is, they have been altered by powerful forces, heat 
and pressure. Whether they were originally sedimentary, 
before they were altered, is doubtful; some geologists 
think the crystalline rocks round Fraserburgh and Peter- 
head were aqueous. Mormond Hill was once a sand- 
stone, and the schists of Cruden Bay and Collieston were 
clay. The same beds traced to the south are found to 
pass gradually into sedimentary rocks that are little altered. 
Whether they were aqueous or igneous originally, they 
have to-day lost all their original character. No fossils 
are found in them. These rocks are the oldest and 
lowest in Aberdeenshire. After their formation, they 
were invaded from below by intrusive masses of molten 
igneous rock, which in many parts of the county is now 
near the surface. This is the granite already referred 
to. Its presence throughout the county has materially 
influenced the character and the industry of the people. 

Wherever granite enters, it tears its irregular way 
through the opposing rocks, and sends veins through 
cracks where such occur. The result of its forcible 
entrance in a molten condition is that the contiguous 
rocks are melted, blistered, and baked by the intrusi\'e 
matter. Whv ijranite should differ from the lava we 



GEOLOGY 39 

see exuding: from active volcanoes is explained by the 
fact that it is formed deep below the surface where there 
is no outlet for its gases. It cools slowly and under great 
pressure and this gives it its special character. If found, 
therefore, at the surface, as it is in Aberdeen, this is be- 
cause the rocks once high above it, concealing its presence 
have been worn away, which gives some idea of the great 
age of the district. One large granitic mass is at Peter- 
head, where it covers an area of 46 square miles, and forms 
the rocky coast for eight miles; but the whole valley of 
the Dee as far as Ben Macdhui, and great part of Don- 
side, consist of this intrusive granite. It varies in colour 
and quality, being in some districts reddish in tint as at 
Sterling Hill near Peterhead, at Hill of Fare, and Coren- 
nie ; in other parts it is light grey in various shades. 

The succession in the order of sedimentary rocks is 
definitely settled, and although this has little application 
to Aberdeenshire, an outline may be given. The oldest 
are the Palaeozoic which includes — in order of age — 

Cambrian, 

Silurian, 

Old Red Sandstone or Devonian, 

Carboniferous, 

Permian. 

Of these the only one represented in Aberdeenshire is 
the Old Red Sandstone, which occupies a considerable 
strip on the coast from Aberdour to Gardenstown, and 
runs inland to Fyvie and Auchterless and even as far as 
Kildrummy and Auchindoir. The deposit is 1300 feet 



40 ABERDEENSHIRE 

thick. A Msitor to the teiwii of Turriff is struck bv the red 
colour ot many of the houses there, a most unusual variant 
upon the blue-grey wliinstone ot" the surrounding districts. 
The explanation is that a convenient quarry of Old Red 
Sandstone exists between Turriff and Cuminestown. Kil- 
drummy Castle, one of the finest and most ancient ruins 
in the county, is not like the majority of the old castles 
built of granite but of a sandstone in the vicinity. The 
same band extends across country to Auchindoir, where 
it is still quarried. 

The next geological group of Rocks, the Secondary 
or Mesozoic, includes — in order of age — 

Triassic, 
Jurassic, 
Cretaceous. 

These are not at all or but barely represented. A patch 
of clay at Plaidy, which was laid bare in cutting the rail- 
way track, belongs to the Jurassic svstem and contains 
ammonites and other fossils characteristic of that period. 
Over a ridge of high ground stretching from Sterling Hill 
south-eastwards are found numbers of rolled flints belong- 
ing to the Cretaceous or chalk period, but the probability 
is that they have been transported from elsewhere by 
moving ice and are not in their natural place. 

The Tertiar\- epocli is just as meagreh' represented 
as the Secondary. Yet this is the period which in other 
parts of the world possesses records of the most ample 
kind. The Alps, the Caucasus, the Himalayas were 
all upheaved in Tertiar\- times; but of any corresponding 



GEOLOGY 41 

activity in the north-east of Scotland, thcM'e is no trace. 
It is only vvlicn the Tertiary merges in the Quaternary 
period that the history is resumed. The deposits of the 
Ice Age, when Scotland was under the grip of an arctic 
climate, are much in evidence all over the county and 
have already been referred to. It is necessary to treat 
the subject in some detail. 

During the glacial period, the snow and ice accu- 
mulated on the west side of the country, and overflowed 
into Aberdeenshire. There were several invasions owing 
to the recurrence of periods of more genial temperature 
when the ice-sheet dwindled. One of the earlier inroads 
probably brought with it the chalk flints now found west 
of Buchan Ness; another brought boulders from the dis- 
trict of Moray. South of Peterhead a drift of a different 
character took place. Most of Slains and Cruden as well 
as Ellon, Foveran, and Belhelvie are covered with a red- 
dish clay with round red pebbles like those of the Old 
Red Sandstone. This points to an invasion of the ice- 
sheet froni Kincardine, where such deposits are rife. 
Dark blue clay came from the west, red clay from the 
south, and in some parts they met and intermixed as at 
St Fergus. A probable third source of glacial remains 
is Scandinavia. In the Ice Age Britain was part of the 
continental mainland, the shallow North Sea having been 
formed at a subsequent period. The low-lying land at 
the north-east of the county was the hollow to which the 
glaciers gravitated from west and south and east, leaving 
their debris on the surface when the ice disappeared. So 
much is this a feature of Buchan that one well-known 



42 ABERDEEXSHIRE 

geologist has humorouslv described it as the riddling heap 
of creation. 

Both the red and the blue clay are often buried under 
the coarse earthy matter and rough stones that formed 
the residuum of the last sheet of ice. This has greatly 
increased the difficulty of clearing the land for cultiyation. 
Moreo\er a clay sub-soil of this kind, which forms a hard 
bottom pan that water cannot percolate through, is not 
conducive to successful farming. Drainage is difficult 
but absolutely necessary before good crops will be pro- 
duced. Both difficulties have been successfully overcome 
by the Aberdeenshire agriculturist, but only by dint of 
great expenditure of time and labour and money. 

The district of the clays is associated with peat beds. 
There is peat, or rather there was once peat all over 
Aberdeenshire, but the depth and extent of the beds are 
greatest where the clay bottom exists. A climate that 
is moist without being too cold favours the growth of 
peat and the Buchan district, projecting so far into the 
North Sea and being subject to somewhat less sunshine 
than other parts of the county, provides the favouring 
conditions. The rainfall is only moderate but it is dis- 
tributed at frequent inter\als, and the clay bottom helps 
to retain the moisture and thus promotes the growth of 
those mosses which after man}' years become beds of peat. 
These peat beds for lonsj provided the fuel of the popula- 
tion. In recent years they are all but exhausted, and the 
facility with which coals are transported by sea and by rail 
is gradually putting an end to the "casting'' and dr\ing 
ot peats. 



GEOLOGY 43 

Moraines of rough gravel — the wreckage of dwindling 
glaciers — are found in various parts of the Dee valley. 
The soil of Deeside has little intermixture of clay and 
is thin and highly porous. It follows that in a dry season 
the crops are short and meagre. The Scots fir, however, 
is partial to such a soil, and its ready growth helps with 
the aid of the natural birches to embellish the Deeside 
landscape. 

In the Cairngorms brown and yellow varieties of 
quartz called " cairngorms " are found either embedded 
in cavities of the granite or in the detritus that accu- 
mulates from the decomposition of exposed rocks. The 
stones, which are really crystals, are much prized for 
jewellery, and are of various colours, pale yellow (citrine), 
brown or smoky, and black and almost opaque. When 
well cut and set in silver, either as brooches or as an 
adornment to the handles of drrks, they have a brilliant 
effect. Time was when they were systematically dug 
and searched for, and certain persons made a living by 
their finds on the hill-sides; but now they are more rare 
and come upon only by accident. 



7. Natural History. 

As we have seen in dealing with the glacial move- 
ments, Britain was at one time part of the continent and 
there was no North Sea. At the best it is a shallow sea, 
and a very trifling elevation of its floor would re-connect 
Scotland with Europe. It follows that our country was 



44 ABERDEEXSHIRE 

inhabited by the same kind of animals as inhabited 
Western Europe. Many of them are now extinct, cave- 
bears, hyaenas and sabre-toothed tigers. All these were 
starved out of existence by the inroads of the ice. After 
the ice disappeared this country remained joined to the 
continent, and as long as the connection was maintained 
the land-animals of Europe were able to cross over and 
occupy the ground ; if the connection had not been 
severed, there wovdd have been no difference between 
our fauna and the animals of Northern France and 
Belgium. But the land sank, and the North Sea filled 
up the hollow, creating a barrier before all the species 
in Northern Europe had been able to effect a footing 
in our country. This applies both to plants and animals. 
While Germany has nearly ninety species of land animals. 
Great Britain has barely forty. All the mammals, rep- 
tiles and amphibians that we have, are found on the 
continent besides a great many that we do not possess. 
Still Scotland can boast of its red grouse, which is not 
seen on the continent. 

With every variety of situation, from exposed sea- 
board to sheltered valley and lofty mountain, the flora 
of Aberdeenshire shows a pleasing and interesting variety. 
The plants of the sea-shore, of the waysides, of the river- 
banks, and ot the lowland peat-mosses are necessarily 
different in manv respects from those of the great moun- 
tain heights. It is impossible here to do more than 
indicate one or two of the leading features. The sandy 
tracts north ot the Ythan mouth ha\e characteristic 
plants, wild rue, sea-thrift, rock-rose, grass of Parnassus, 



NATURAL HISTORY 45 

catch-fl)'^ {Silene mar'iti?na). The waysides are brilliant 
with blue-bells, speedwell, thistles, yarrow and violas. 
The peat-mosses show patches of louse-wort, sundew, 
St John's wort, cotton-grass, butterwort and ragged 
robin. The pine-woods display an undergrowth of blae- 
berries, galliums, winter-green, veronicas and geraniums. 
The Llnnaca horealh is exceedingly rare, but has a {q-w 
localities known to enterprising botanists. The whin and 
the broom in May and June add conspicuous colouring 
to the landscape while a different tint of yellow shines 
in the oat-fields, which are throughout the county m.ore 
or less crowded with wild mustard or charlock. The 
granitic hills are all mantled with heather (common ling, 
Calluna erica) up to 3000 feet, brown in winter and 
spring but taking on a rich purple hue when it breaks 
into flower in early August. The purple bell-heather 
does not rise beyond 2000 feet and flowers much earlier. 
Through the heather trails the stag-moss, and the pyrola 
and the genista thrust their blossoms above the sea of 
purple. The cranberry, the crow-berry and the whortle- 
berry, and more rarely the cloudberry or Avron [Riibus 
chamaemorus) are found on all the Cairngorms. The 
Alpine rock-cress is there also, as well as the mountain 
violet [Viola lutea\ which takes the place of the hearts- 
ease of the lowlands. The moss-campion spreads its 
cushions on the highest mountains ; saxifrages of various 
species haunt every moist spot of the hill-sides and the 
Alpine lady's mantle, the Alpine scurvy-grass, the Alpine 
speedwell, the trailing azalea, the dwarf cornel [Cornus 
suecica\ and many other varieties are to be found by 
those who care to look for them. 



46 ABERDEENSHIRE 

As we have said, no trees thrive near the coast. 
The easterly and northerly winds make their grov^^th 
precarious, and where they have been planted they look 
as if shorn with a mighty scythe, so decisive is the slope 
of their branches away from the direction of the cold 
blasts. Their growth too in thickness of bole is pain- 
fully slow, even a period of twenty years making no 
appreciable addition to the circumference of the stem. 
Convincing evidence exists that in ancient times the 
county was closely wooded. In peat-bogs are found 
the root-stems of Scots fir and oak trees of much larger 
bulk than we are familiar with now. The resinous roots 
of the fir trees, dug up and split into long strips, were the 
fir-candles of a century ago, the only artificial light of 
the time. 

The district is not exceptional or peculiar in its fauna. 
The grey or brown rat, which has entirely displaced the 
smaller black rat, is very common and proves destructive 
to farm crops — a result partially due to the eradication of 
birds of prey, as well as of stoats and weasels, by game- 
keepers in the interest of game. The prolific rabbit is 
in certain districts far too numerous and plays havoc with 
the farmer's turnips and other growing crops. Brown 
hares are fairly plentiful but less numerous than they 
were in the days of their protection. Every farmer has 
now the right to kill ground game (hares and rabbits) 
on his farm and this helps to keep the stock low. The 
white or Alpine hare is plentiful in the hilly tracts and 
is shot along with the grouse on the grouse moors. The 
otter is occasionally trapped on the rivers, and a few foxes 



NATURAL HISTORY 



47 



are shot on the hills. The mole is in evidence everywhere 
up to the 1500 feet level, by the mole-heaps he leaves in 
every field, and the mole-catcher is a familiar character 
in most parishes. The squirrel has worked his way north 




I* 






Deer in time of snow 



during the last sixty years, and is now to be found in 
every fir-wood. The graceful roedeer is also a denizen 
of the pine-woods, whence he makes forays on the oat- 
fields. The red-deer is abundant on the higher and more 
remote hills, and deer-stalking is perhaps the most exciting 



48 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



as it certainly is the most exacting of all forms of Scottish 
sport. The pole-cat is rarely seen; he is best known to 
the present generation in the half-domesticated breed called 
the ferret. The hedge-hog, the common shrew, and the 
water-vole are all common. 

The birds are numerous and full of interest. The 
coast is frequented by vast flocks of sea-gulls, guillemots, 




The Dunbuy Rock 



and cormorants, while the estuary of the Ythan has 
many visitants such as the ringed plover, the eider-duck, 
the shelduck, the oyster-catcher, redshank, and tern. On 
the north bank of this river the triangular area of sand- 
dunes between Newburgh and Collieston is a favourite 
nesting-place for eider-duck and terns. The nests of 



NATURAL HISTORY 49 

the eider-duck, with their five large olive-green eggs 
embedded in the soft dow^n drawn from the mother's 
breast, are found in great numbers amongst the grassy 
bents. The eggs of the tern, on the other hand, are 
laid in a mere hollow of the open sand, but so numerous 
are they that it is almost impossible for a pedestrian to 
avoid treading upon them. Puffins or sea-parrots are 
conspicuous amongst the many sea-birds that frequent 
Dunbuy Rock. This island rock, half-way up the 
eastern coast, is a typical sea-bird haunt, where gulls, 
puffins, razorbills and guillemots are to be seen in a state 
of restless activity. A colony of black-headed gulls has 
for a number of years bred and multiplied in a small loch 
near Kintore. A vast number of migratory birds strike 
the shores of Aberdeenshire every year in their westward 
flight. The waxwing, the hoopoe, and the rufF are oc- 
casional visitors, the great northern diver and the snow- 
bunting being more frequent. 

The game-birds of the district are the partridge and 
the pheasant in the agricultural region, and the red grouse 
on the moors. The higher hills, such as Loch-na-gar, have 
ptarmigan, while the wooded areas bordering on the high- 
land line are frequented by black-cock and capercailzie. 
These last are a re-introduction of recent years and seem 
to be multiplying ; but, like the squirrel, they are destruc- 
tive to the growing shoots of the pine trees and are not 
encouraged by some proprietors. The lapwing or green 
plover's wail is an unfailing sound throughout the county 
in the spring. These useful birds are said to be fewer 
than they were fifty years ago^ — a result piobably due to 

M. A. 4 



50 ABERDEENSHIRE 

the demand for their eggs as a table delicacy. After the 
first of April it is illegal to take the eggs, and this partial 
protection serves to maintain the stock in fair numbers. 
The starling, which, like the squirrel, was unknown in 
this district sixty years ago, has increased so rapidly that 
flocks of them containing many thousands are now a 
common sight in the autumn. The kingfisher is met 
with, very, very rarely on the river-bank, but the dipper 
is never absent from the boulder-strewn beds of the 
streams. The plaintive note of the curlew and the 
shriller whistle of the golden plover break the silence 
of the lonely moors. The golden eagle nests in the 
solitudes of the mountains and may occasionally be seen, 
soaring high in the vicinity of his eyrie. 

Of fresh-water fishes, the yellow or brown trout is 
plentiful in all the rivers, especially in the Don and the 
Ythan. The migratory sea-trout and the salmon are also 
caught in each, although the Dee is pre-eminently the 
most productive. The salmon fisheries round the coast 
and at the mouth of the rivers are a source of consider- 
able revenue. The fish are caught by three species of 
net, bag-nets (floating nets) and stake-nets (fixed) in the 
sea, and by drag-nets or sweep-nets in the tidal reaches 
of the rivers. Time was when drag-nets plied as far 
inland as Banchory-Ternan (ig miles), but these have 
gradually been withdrawn and are now relegated to a 
short distance from the river mouth, the rights ha\ing 
been bought up by the riparian proprietors further up 
the river, who wish to obtain improved opportunities 
for successful ansjlins;. The Dee has, in this wav, been 



NATURAL HISTORY 51 

so improved that it is now perhaps the finest salmon-angling 
river in Scotland. 

The insects of the district call for little remark. 
Butterflies are few in species and without variety. It 
is only in certain warm autumns that the red admiral 
puts in an appearance. The cabbage-white, the tortoise- 
shell, and an occasional meadow-brown and fritillary are 
the prevailing species. 

The waters of the Ythan, the Ugie, and the Don are 
frequented by fresh-water mussels which produce pearls. 
These grow best on a pebbly bottom not too deep and 
are 3 to 7 inches long and ih to 2h broad. The internal 
surface is bluish or with a shade of pink. The search 
for these mussels in order to secure the pearls they may 
and do sometimes contain was once a recognised industry. 
To-day it is spasmodic and mostly in the hands of vagrants. 
Many beds are destroyed before the mussels are mature 
and this lessens the chances of success. The pearl-fisher 
usually wades in the river, making observation of the 
bottom by means of a floating glass which removes the 
disturbing effect of the surface ripple. He thus obtains 
a clear view of the river-bed, and by means of a forked 
stick dislodges the mussels and brings them to bank, 
150 making a good day's work. He opens them at 
leisure and finds that the great majority of his pile are 
without pearls. If he be lucky enough, however, to 
come upon a batch of mature shells he may find a pearl 
worth /^20. As a rule the price is not above ten or 
twenty shillings. Much depends on the size and the 
colouring. The most valuable are those of a pinkish hue. 

4—2 



52 ABERDEENSHIRE 



8. Round the Coast. 

The harbour-mouth, which is also the mouth of the 
Dee, is the beginning of the county on the sea-board. 
It is protected by two breakwaters, north and south, 
which shelter the entrance channel from the fury of 
easterly and north-easterly gales. To the south, in 
Kincardineshire, is the Girdleness lighthouse, 185 feet 
high, flashing a light every twenty seconds with a range 
of visibility stated at 19 miles. To the north of the 
harbour entrance are the links and the bathing station. 
The latter was erected in 1895 and has since been ex- 
tended, every effort being made to add to the attractive- 
ness of the beach as a recreation ground. A promenade, 
whicli will ultimately extend to Donmouth, is in great 
part complete; and all the other usual concomitants of 
a watering-place have been introduced with promising 
success so far, and likely to be greater in the near 
future. 

From Donmouth tlie northward coast presents little 
of interest. All the way to the estuary of the Ythan 
is a region of sand-dunes bound together by marum grass 
and stunted whins, excellent for golf courses, but lacking 
in variety. In the sandy mounds in the vicinity of the 
Ythan have been found man)- flint chippings and amongst 
them leaf-shaped flint arrow-iieads, chisels and cores, as 
well as the water-worn stones on which these implements 
were fashioned. These records of primitive man as he 
was in tlie later Stone Age are conspicuous here, and are 




3 
o 

ho 



54 ABERDEEXSHIRE 

to be seen in other parts of the county. In the rabbit 
burrows, which are abundant in the dunes, the stock-dove 
rears her young. In 1888 a migratory flock of sand- 
grouse took possession ot the dunes, and remained tor 
one season. 

Beyond the Ythan are the Forvie sands — a region 
of hummocks under which a whole parish is buried. 
The destruction of the parish took place several centuries 
ago, when a succession of north-easterly gales, continued 
for many days, whipped up the loose sand of the coast- 
dunes and blew it onward in clouds till the whole parish, 
including several valuable farms, was entirely submerged. 
The scanty ruins of the old church of Forvie is the onlv 
trace left of this sand-smothered hamlet. 

Not far from the site of the Forvie church is a beau- 
tiful semi-lunar bav called Hacklev Bav, where for the 
first time since Aberdeen was left behind, rocks appear, 
hornblende, slate, and gneiss. At Collieston, a village 
consisting ot a medlev of irregularly located cottages 
scrambling up the cliff sides, a thriving industry used to 
be practised, the making of Collieston " speldings." 
These were small whitings, split, salted and dried on 
the rocks. Thirty years ago they were considered 
something ot a delicacy and were disposed ot in great 
quantities ; now they have lost favour and are seldom to 
be had. At the north end of the yillage is St Catherine's 
Dub, a deep pool between rocks, on which one of the 
ships of the Spanish Armada was wrecked in 1588. 
Two of the St Catherine's cannon \ ery much corroded 
ha\ e been brought up from the sea-floor. One of them 



ROUND THE COAST 55 

is still to be seen at Haddo House, the seat of the Earl 
of Aberdeen. 

Northward we come upon a region of steep grassy 
braes, consisting of soft, loamy clay, 20 to 40 feet deep, 
and covered with luxuriant grasses in summer and ablaze 
with golden cowslips in the spring months. Along the 
coast are several villages which once populous with busy 
and hardy fishermen are now all but tenantless. Such 
are Slains and Whinnyfold crushed out of activity by the 
rise of the trawling industry. The next place of note 
is Cruden Bay Hotel built by the Great North of Scot- 
land Railway Company, and intended to minister specially 
to the devotees of golf, for which the coast links are here 
eminently suitable. The fine granite building facing the 
sea is a conspicuous landmark. Just north of the Hotel 
is the thriving little town of Port Errol, through which 
runs the Cruden burn — a stream where sea-trout are 
plentifully caught at certain seasons. The next promi- 
nent object is Slains castle — the family seat of the Earls 
of Errol. It stands high and windy, presenting a bold 
front to the North Sea breezes. All its windows on the 
sea-face are duplicate, a necessary precaution in view of 
the fierceness of the easterly gales. Very few plants grow 
in this exposed locality, and these only in the hollow and 
sheltered ground behind the castle, where some stunted 
trees and a few garden flowers struggle along in a pre- 
carious existence. As we proceed, the rocky coast rises 
higher and bolder and presents variable forms of great 
beauty. Beetling crags enclose circular bays with per- 
pendicular walls on which the kittiwake, the guillemot. 



ROUND THE COAST 57 

the jackdaw and the starling breed by the thousand. 
The rock of Dunbuy, a huge mass of granite, surrounded 
by the sea, and forming a grand rugged arch, is a summer 
haunt of sea-birds and rock-pigeons. 

After this, we reach the picturesque and much visited 
Bullers of Buchan — a wide semi-circular sea cauldron, the 
sides of which are perpendicular cliflFs. The pool has no 
entry except from the seaward side, and it is only in calm 
weather that a boat is safe to pass through the low, open 
archway in the clifF. In rough weather, the waves rush 
through the narrow archway with terrific force, sending 
clouds of spray far beyond the height of the cliffs. Under 
proper conditions the scene is one of the grandest in 
Aberdeenshire, and is a fitting contrast to the sublimely 
impressive scenes at the source of the Dee, right at the 
other end of the county. Beyond the Bullers, the coast 
consists of high granite rocks, behind which are wind- 
swept moors. Near Boddam is Sterling Hill quarry, the 
source of the red-hued Peterhead granite. Here too is 
Buchan Ness, the most easterly point on the Scottish 
coast, and a fitting place for a prominent lighthouse. 
The lantern of the circular tower (erected in 1827) stands 
130 feet above high-water mark and flashes a white light 
once every five seconds. The light is visible at a distance 
of 16 nautical miles. 

At Peterhead, which is a prosperous fishing centre and 
the eastern terminus of the bifurcate Buchan line of rail- 
way, is a great convict prison, occupying an extensive 
range of buildings on the south side of the Peterhead 
bay. The convicts are employed in building a harbour of 




The Pot." Bullers o" Buchan 



ROUND THE COAST 59 

refuge, which is being erected under the superintendence of 
the Admiralty at a cost of a million of money. The coast 
onwards to the Ugie mouth is still rocky, but from the 
river to Rattray Head, the rocks give place to sand-dunes 
similar in character to those further south. Alongside of 
the dunes is a raised sea beach. They form the links of 
St Fergus. Rattray Head is a rather low reef of rock 
running far out to sea and highly suitable as a lighthouse 
station. In the course of twelve years, the reef was re- 
sponsible for 24 shipwrecks. The lighthouse erected in 
1895 is 120 feet high and the light gives three flashes 
in quick succession every 30 seconds. It is visible 18 
miles out to sea. Beyond this point is a region of bleak 
and desolate sands. Not a tree nor a shrub is to be seen. 
The inland parts are under cultivation, but the general 
aspect of the country is dismal and dreary, and the very 
hedgerows far from the sea-board lean landwards as if 
cowering from the scourges of the north wind's whip. 
The country is undulatory without any conspicuous hill. 
Beyond Rattray Head is the Loch of Strathbeg already 
referred to. The tradition goes that the same gale as 
blighted Forvie silted up this loch and contracted its 
connection with the sea. On the left safely sheltered 
from the sea-breezes are Crimonmogate, Cairness and 
Philorth — all mansion-houses surrounded by wooded 
grounds. At the sea-edge stand St Combs (an echo of 
St Columba), Cairnbulg and Inverallochy. Here occurs 
another raised sea beach. Our course from Rattray Head 
has been north-west and thus we reach the last important 
town on the coast — Fraserbursrh. 



ROUND THE COAST 



61 



Fraserburgh lies to the west of its bay. Founded by 
one of the Frasers of Philorth (now represented by Lord 
Saltoun), it is like Peterhead a thriving town. Like Peter- 




Kinnaird Lighthouse, Fraserburgh 



head too, it is the terminus of one fork ot the Buchan 
Railway and a busy fishing centre. In the month of July, 
which is the height of the herring season, "the Broch," 
as it is called locally, is astir with life from early morn. 



62 



ABERDEEXSHIRE 



More herrings are handled at Fraserburgh than anywhere 
else on this coast, from Eyemouth to Wick. Between 
Fraserburgh and Broadsea is Kinnaird's Head. Here we 
have another lighthouse which has served that purpose 
for more than a century, an old castle having been con- 
verted to this use in 1787. It was one of the first three 
lis;hthouses in Scotland. Kinnaird's Head is believed to 




Entrance to Lord Pitsligos Cave, Rosehearty 

be the promontory ot the Taixali mentioned by the Alex- 
andrian geographer Ptolemy as being at the entrance of 
the Moray Firth. Here the rocks are of moderate height 
but further west they fall to sea-level and continue so past 
Sandhaven and PituUie to Rosehearty. A low rocky coast 
carries us to Aberdour bay, where beds of Old Red Sand- 
stone and conglomerate rise to an altitude of 300 feet. 



64 ABERDEENSHIRE 

The conglomerate extends to the Red Head of Pennan — 
once a quarry for mill-stones — where an attractive and 
picturesque little village nestles at the base of the cliff. 
The peregrine falcon breeds on the rocky fastnesses of 
these lofty cliffs, which continue to grow in height and 
grandeur till they reach their maximum (400 feet) at 
Troup Head. Troup Head makes a bold beginning for 
the county of Banff. 



9. Weather and Climate. Tempera= 
ture. Rainfall. Winds. 

The climate of a county depends on a good many 
things, its latitude, its height above sea-level, its proxi- 
mity to the sea, the prevailing winds, and especially as 
regards Scotland whether it is situated on the east coast 
or on the west. The latitude of Great Britain if the 
country were not surrounded by the sea would entitle 
it to a temperature only comparable to that of Greenland 
but its proximity to the Atlantic redeems it from such a 
fate. The Atlantic is 3° warmer than the air and the 
fact that the prevailing winds are westerly or south- 
westerly helps to raise the mean temperature of the 
western counties higher than that of those on the east. 
The North Sea is only 1° warmer than the air so that 
its influence is less marked. 

Still, considering its latitude (57^ — 57° 40'), Aber- 
deenshire enjoys a comparatively moderate climate. It 
is neither very rigorous in winter nor very warm in 




Rainfall Map of Scotland. (After Dr H. R. Mill) 



M. A. 



66 ABERDEENSHIRE 

summer. Of covirse in a large county a distinction 
must be drawn between the coast temperature and that 
of the high lying districts such as Braemar. The fringe 
round the coast is in the summer less warm than the 
inland parts, a result due to the coolness of the enclosing 
sea, but in the winter this state of aifairs is reversed and 
the uplands are held in the grip of a hard frost while the 
coast-side has little or none. 

The mean temperature of Scotland is 47", while Aber- 
deen has 46°'4 and Peterhead 46'-8. That of Braemar, 
the most westerly station in the county, though in reality 
very little lower, is arrived at by entirely different figures; 
the temperature being much higher during July, August 
and September, but lower in December, January and 
February. Braemar is 1 1 14 feet above sea-level and 
since there is a regular and uniform decline in tempera- 
ture to the extent of 1° for every 270 feet above the sea, 
the temperature of this hill-station should be low. As a 
matter of fact, from June to September it is only 9° and 
in October 7°"5 below that of London. Yet its maximum 
is 10° higher than is recorded at Aberdeen, only in winter 
its minimum is 20° lower than the minimum of the coast. 
Braemar and Peterhead as lying at the two extremes 
of the county may be compared. Peterhead receives the 
uninterrupted sweep of the easterly breezes, for it has no 
shelter or protection either of forests or mountains. The 
impression a visitor takes is that Peterhead is an exception- 
ally cold place. As a fact, its mean winter temperature 
is above the average for Scotland, but the lack of shelter 
and the constant motion of the air give an impression of 



68 ABERDEENSHIRE 

coldness. In the summer and autumn its mean falls below 
that of Scotland. It is therefore less cold in the cold 
months and less warm in the warm months than Braemar 
and has a seasonal variation of only i6°*3 between winter 
and summer, whereas Edinburgh has a range of 21° and 
London of 26°. 

The rainfall over the whole county is also moderate, 
ranging from less than 25 inches at Peterhead — the driest 
part of the area — to 40 inches at Braemar, and 32 at 
Aberdeen. This is a small rainfall compared with 60 or 
70 inches on parts of the west coast. The driest months 
in Aberdeenshire are April and May, and generally speak- 
ing less rain falls in the early half of the year when the 
temperature is rising than in the later half when the tem- 
perature is on the decline. Two inches is about the average 
for each month from February to June, but October, 
November and December are each over three inches. 
The most of the rainfall of Scotland comes from the west 
and south. This explains why the west coast is so much 
wetter than the east. The westerly winds from the 
Atlantic, laden with moisture, strike upon the high lands 
of the west, but exhaust themselves before they reach the 
watershed and, having precipitated their moisture between 
that and the coast, they reach the east coast comparatively 
dry. Braemar just under the watershed is relatively dry. 
Its situation as an elevated valley, 1 1 14 feet above sea-level 
and surrounded on three sides by hills of from three to four 
thousand feet, and the fact that it is 60 miles from the sea 
combine to make it one of the most bracing places and give 
it one of the finest summer climates in the British Isles. 



WEATHER AND CLIMATE 69 

This sufficiently accounts for its popularity as a health 
resort. May is its driest month, October its wettest. 

Easterly winds bring rain to the coast, but as a rule 
the rain extends no further inland than 20 miles. Easterly 
winds prevail during March, April and May, which make 
this season the most trying part of the year for weakly 
people. In summer the winds are often northerly, but 
the prevailing winds of the year, active for 37 per cent, of 
the 365 days or little less than half, are west and south- 
west. East winds bring fog, and this is most prevalent in 
the early summer, June being perhaps the worst month. 
The greatest drawback to the climate from an agricvil- 
turist's point of view is the lateness of the spring. The 
svunmer being short, a late spring means a late harvest, 
which is invariably unsatisfactory. 

The low rainfall of the county is favourable to sun- 
shine. Aberdeen has 1400 hours of sunshine during the 
year in spite of fogs and east winds ; the more inland parts 
being beyond the reach of sea-fog have an even better 
record. 

The great objection — an objection taken by folks who 
have spent part of their life in South Africa or Canada — 
is the variableness of the climate from day to day. There 
is not here any fixity for continued periods of weather 
such as obtains in these countries. The chief factor in 
this variability is our insular position on the eastern side 
of the Atlantic. When, on rare occasions, as sometimes 
happens in June or in September, the atmosphere is settled, 
Aberdeenshire enjoys for a few weeks weather of the most 
salubrious and delio-htful kind. 



70 ABERDEENSHIRE 

lo. The People — Race, Language, 
Population. 

The blood of the people of Aberdeenshire, though in 
the main Teutonic, has combined with Celtic and other 
elements, and has evolved a distinctive type, somew^hat 
different in appearance and character from what is found 
in other parts of Scotland. How this amalgamation came 
about must be explained at some length. 

The earliest inhabitants of Britain must have crossed 
from Europe when as yet there was no dividing North 
Sea. They used rough stone weapons (see p. 114) and 
were hunters living upon the products of the chase, the 
mammoth, reindeer and other animals that roamed the 
country. Such were palaeolithic (ancient stone) men. 
Perhaps they never reached Scotland : at least there is no 
trace of them in Aberdeenshire. They were followed 
by neolithic (new stone) men, who used more delicately 
carved weapons, stone axes, and flint arrows. Traces of 
these are to be found in Aberdeenshire. A few short 
cists containing skeletal remains have been found in 
various parts of the county. In the last forty years some 
fifteen of these have been unearthed. From these anthro- 
pologists conclude that neolithic men lived here at the 
end of the stone age, men of a muscular type, of short 
stature and with broad short faces. They were mighty 
hunters hunting the wild ox, the wolf and the bear in 
the dense forests which, after the Ice Age passed, over- 
spread the north-east. They clothed themselves against 



PEOPLE— RACE, LANGUAGE, ETC. 71 

the cold in the skins of the animals which they made 
their prey and were a rude, savage, hardy race toughened 
by their mode of life and their fierce struggle for exist- 
ence. They did not live by hunting alone; they possessed 
herds of cattle, swine and sheep and cultivated the ground 
but probably only to a slight extent. Their weapons 
were rude arrow-heads, flint knives and flint axes ; and a 
considerable number oi these primitive weapons as well 
as the bones of red-deer and the primeval ox — hos primi- 
genius — have been recovered from peat-mosses and else- 
where throughout the district. Such have been found at 
Barra, at Inverurie and at Alford. 

Besides these remains, have been found urns made of 
boulder clay, burned by fire and rudely ornamented. 
These were very likely their original drinking vessels, 
afterwards somewhat modified as food vessels, and were, 
it is supposed, deposited in graves with a religious motive 
in accordance with the belief common among primitive 
peoples that paradise is a happy hunting-ground in which 
the activities of the present life will continue under more 
favourable conditions. 

In addition to these relics the county has a great 
number of stone circles, circles of large upright boulders 
set up not at hap-hazard but evidently with some definite 
object in view. These will be dealt with in a later 
chapter. The probability is that the so-called Pictish 
houses, the earth or Eirde houses found on Donside and 
the lake dwellings at Kinnord already referred to, were the 
homes of these people. But the whole subject is by no 
means clear. The general opinion is that the north-east 



72 ABERDEENSHIRE 

was first inhabited by Picts, who may or may not have 
been Iberians, and that after the Picts came the Celts ; 
but some critics hold that the Picts were only earlier 
Celts. In any case the Stone Age was succeeded by the 
Bronze Age, when Bronze took the place of Stone in the 
formation of weapons. The Celts made their way 
through Central France to Britain and ultimately to 
Scotland. Unlike the people they found in possession of 
Scotland, they were tall (5 ft. 9 in.). These are the 
ancestors of the Gaelic speaking people of Scotland. They 
are supposed to have amalgamated to some extent with 
the Neolithic men whom they found on the spot, and it 
is certain that they were christianised at an early period. 
Later on Teutonic tribes, tall, longheaded and fairhaired 
men crossed from the Baltic to Britain and in due course 
they too reached Aberdeenshire. But up to the time of 
David I (11 24-1 1 53) the population and institutions of 
the north-east were entirely Celtic. The Saxon or Teu- 
tonic element was introduced by way of the coast and the 
trading towns. From the towns it spread to the country 
districts. When Henry II expelled the Flemish traders 
from England many migrated to the north and formed 
settlements in many parts of the country, establishing 
trade and handicraft, particularly weaving, and reclaiming 
waste land. The defeat of Comyn, the Earl of Buchan, 
by Bruce in 1308, when Bruce harried Buchan from end 
to end and spared none, opened the way for lowland 
immigrants and not only gave an impetus to Teutonic 
settlements, but helped to kill out the Celtic language 
and the Celtic ways. These immigrants are really the 



' PEOPLE -RACE, LAI^GUAGE, ETC. 73 

ancestors of the present Aberdeenshire people, but they 
have been greatly modified by absorbing the Celtic popu- 
lation and mixing with it, for though reduced by slaughter, 
and by an exodus to the hills, it had not entirely disap- 
peared. Scandinavians from Norway and Denmark also 
found a footing at various periods in this north-eastern 
region and these elements are all blended in the modern 
Aberdonian. Celt, Saxon, Fleming and Scandinavian 
came in one after the other and possessed the land, form- 
ing a new people in which all these elements were fused. 
Aberdonians are credited with a distinct individuality, 
partly the result of race, partly due to environment. The 
strain of practicality in the Teuton toned down the Celtic 
imagination and warmth of feeling, and added a certain 
tincture of the phlegmatic such as is so prominent in the 
Dutchman. Hence the cautious "canny" nature of the 
typical Aberdonian, dreading innovations, resisting agri- 
cultural novelties, and disliking ecclesiastical changes. 
They have been described as people 

Who are not fond of innovations, 
Nor covet much new reformations ; 
They are not for new paths but rather 
Each one jogs after his old father. 

This requires some elucidation. They are far from 
slothful or indifferent. They will uphold with zeal the 
cause they think right, but they must first reach assured 
conviction that it is right. They are not swift nor slow 
to change, but firm. 

The Celtic population was in fact absorbed, as we 
have said, but a certain contingent betook themselves to 



74 ABERDEENSHIRE 

the mountains and for long kept up a warfare ot reprisals 
upon those who had dispossessed them. This caused no 
end of trouble in Aberdeenshire but not without its uses 
for it braced the occupants in the arts of defence and made 
them alert and courageous. 

No less potent a factor in the evolution of the 
Aberdonian has been his struggle with a well-nigh irre- 
claimable soil. The county is without mineral wealth, 
and the only outlet for his energy was found in attacking 
the boulder-strewn moors and in clearing them for the 
plough. To this he set his mind in the eighteenth 
century with grim determination. Small farmers and 
crofters by dint of great personal toil and life-long self- 
sacrifice transformed stony tracts of poor and apparently 
worthless land into smiling and productive fields. It is 
this struggle with a malignant soil, more than anything 
else, that has made the Aberdonian ; one triumph led on to 
another, and to-day the spirit of enterprise in farming is 
nowhere more pronounced than in this difficult county. 

The place names are almost entirely Celtic, and even 
when they appear to be Saxon they are only Gaelic 
mispronounced or assimilated to something better known. 
The parish of King Edward might very plausibly be 
referred to the northern visits paid by the Hammer of the 
Scots, but it is really Kinedar, with the Gaelic Kin (seen 
in Kinnaird, Kintore and Malcolm Canmore), meaning a 
head. 

The county has a distinctive dialect, really imported 
and originally uniform with the dialect of the Mearns, 
and of Northumbria, the dialect spoken at one time all 



' PEOPLE—RACE, LANGUAGE, ETC. 75 

the way from Forth to Huniber. To-day it is called the 
Buchan Doric and though varying somewhat in different 
parts of the county and hardly intelligible in the High- 
lands of Braemar, where Gaelic still survives, it is a 
Teutonic speech with a thin tincture of Gaelic words 
such as bourach^ closach^ clachan^ brochan^ etc. 

The dialect contains many vocables not found in 
literary English, such as b^ous and ondeemis for extraordi- 
nary, but where the words are English, they are greatly 
altered. It is characterised by broad, open vowels ; 
"boots" is pronounced "beets," "cart" is"cairt," "good" 
is "gweed." The final / is dropped; "pull" is "pu," 
"fall" is "fa." Final ol becomes ow ; "roll" is made 
"row," and "poll" is "pow." IVh is always /": "white" 
is "fite" and "who?" (interrogative) is "fa?" It is rich 
in diminutives like the Dutch — a lassie^ a basketie. The 
finest embodiment of this striking dialect, giving perma- 
nent life to its wealth of pathos and expressiveness, is Dr 
William Alexander's "Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk. 

Scots ivha hae^ which is supposed to be a characteristic 
phrase common to all the dialects, would be in Buchan 
— Scoti at hi%^ which is largely Norse. "The quynie 
coudna be ongrutten" is Buchan for "The little girl 
could not help crying." 

The population of the county which a hundred years 
before was 121,065 in 1901 was 304,439. Since the 
county contains 1970 square miles this brings out an 
average of 154 to the square mile — just a little over the 
average of Scotland as a whole, but as Aberdeen city 
accounts for more than half of the total, and towns like 



1Q ABERDEENSHIRE 

Peterhead and Fraserburgh between them represent 
25,000, the figure is greatly reduced for the rural districts. 
The country districts are but thinly peopled, especially 
on the Highland line, and the tendency is for the rural 
population to dwindle. They either emigrate to Canada, 
which is a regular lodestone for Aberdonians, or they 
betake themselves to the towns, chiefly to Aberdeen itself. 
Except in and around the principal town, the county has 
hardly any industries that employ many hands. Agricul- 
ture is the main employment, and modern appliances 
enable the farmer to do his work with fewer helps than 
formerly : hence the depopulation of the rural districts. 
The towns tend to grow, the rural parishes to become 
more sparsely inhabited. 



II. Agriculture. 

This is the mainstay of the county, and considering 
the somewhat uncertain climate, the shortness of the 
summer and the natural poverty of the soil, it has been 
brought to marvellous perfection. The mountainous 
regions are necessarily cut off from this industry except in 
narrow fringes along the river banks, but in the low-lying 
area it is safe to say that every acre of ground worth 
reclaiming has been put to the plough. A century ago 
the industry was rude and ill-organised, the county being 
without roads and without wheeled vehicles, but the 
advent of railways gave an impetus to the farming instinct 
and an extraordinary activity set in to reclaim waste land 



AGRICULTURE 11 

by clearing it of stones, by trenching, by draining and 
manuring it. The proprietors were usually agreeable to 
granting a long lease at a nominal rent to any likely and 
energetic man who was willing to undertake reclamations 
and take his chance of recouping himself for outlays 
before his lease expired. Being thus secured, the farmer 
or crofter had an incentive to put the maximum of labour 
into his holding. He often built the dwelling-house, and 
as a rule made the enclosures by means of the stones, 
which, with great labour, he dragged from the fields. In 
this way a great acreage was added to the arable land of 
the county, and though some of it has fallen into pasture 
since the great boom in agricultural prices during the 
seventies in last century, the greater part of the reclaimed 
soil is still in cultivation. 

The area of the county, exclusive of water and road- 
ways, is 1955 square miles, or 1,251,451 acres. Of this 
exactly one half is under cultivation, 628,523 acres. 
When we remember that Scotland contains some nineteen 
million of acres and that only 25 per cent, of this acreage 
is arable land, it is apparent that Aberdeen with its 
50 per cent, is one of the most cultivated areas. As a 
matter of fact it has by far the largest acreage under 
cultivation of any Scottish county. Next to it is Perth- 
shire with 336,251 acres. The uncultivated half is made 
up of mountain, moor and woodlands. Part of this is 
used for grazing sheep, as much as 157)955 ^cres being 
thus utilised. In the matter of woods and plantations 
the county with its 105,931 acres stands next to Inver- 
ness-shire, which has 145,629. The trees grown are 



78 ABERDEENSHIRE 

mostly larch and pine and spruce, but the deciduous trees, 
or hard woods, the beech, elm and ash, are not uncommon 
in the low country, more especially as ornamental trees 
around the manor-houses of the proprietors. 

The crops chiefly cultivated are oats, barley, turnips 
and potatoes. Wheat is not grown except now and ao;ain 
in an odd field. The climate is too cold, the autumn 
heat never rising to the point of ripening that crop 
satisfactorily. Oats is the most frequent crop, and Aber- 
deenshire is the oat-producing county of Scotland. A 
fifth of the whole acreage under this crop in Scotland 
belongs to Aberdeenshire. Perth, which is next, has only 
one-third of the Aberdeenshire oat-area. Twenty thou- 
sand acres are devoted to barley, only one-tenth of the 
barley-area in Scotland. Over seven thousand acres go to 
potatoes ; the southern counties have a soil better adapted 
to produce good potatoes ; Forfar, Fife, Perth and Ayr- 
shire excel in this respect and all these give a larger acreage 
to this crop. As regards turnips, however, Aberdeenshire 
is easily first. Being a great cattle rearing and cattle 
feeding district, it demands a large tonnage of turnip food. 
It is estimated that a million and a half tons of turnips 
are consumed every year in the county. 

As regards cattle and horses the county has first place 
in Scotland. In 1909 there were 204,490 agricultural 
horses in the country and of these 31,592 were in Aber- 
deenshire, while of 1,176,165 cattle it had 168,091. It 
has a quarter of a million sheep, but here it falls behind 
other counties, notably Argyll, which has nearly a million, 
or one-seventh of all the sheep in Scotland. 



AGRICULTURE 79 

Aberdeenshire is a county of small holdings. No 
other county has so many tenants. Over five thousand 
of these farm from five to 50 acres, while there are nearly 
four thousand who farm areas ranging from 50 to 300. 
This is part of the secret of its success. Earlier, the 
number of small farms was greater, the tendency being 
in the direction of throwing several smaller holdings 
together to make a large farm. 

The industry has been a progressive one. Up to the 
Union in 1707 tillage was of the most primitive kind. 
Sheep-farming for the sake of exporting the wool had 
been the rule, but the Union stopped that branch of com- 
merce. Later on, about the middle of the eighteenth 
century, the droving of lean cattle into England was 
a means of profit. Meantime the system of cultivation 
was ol" the rudest. A few acres round the steading, 
called the infield, were cropped year after year with little 
manuring, while the area beyond, called the outfield, was 
only cropped occasionally. There was no drainage and 
enclosures were unknown. Improvement came from the 
south. Sir Archibald Grant ot Monymusk and Mr 
Alexander Udny of Udny were pioneers of better things; 
they brought labourers and overseers from the Lothians 
and the south of England, to educate the people in new 
methods of culture. At first a landlord's, it by and by 
became a farmer's battle ; and ultimately in the nineteenth 
century it was the farmers who did the reclaiming. 
But the landlords set a good example by sowing grasses 
and turnips. 

Near Aberdeen, a boulder-strewn wilderness was con- 



80 ABERDEENSHIRE 

verted into fertile fields. The town feued the lands and 
the feuars cleared away the stones, which they sold and 
shipped to London for paving purposes; the process of 
clearing cost as much as ;^ioo an acre, a fourth of this 
being recovered by the sale of the stones. This is typical 
of what was done elsewhere. Gradually the bleak moors 
were absorbed. A famine in 1782 opened the eyes of all 
concerned. Hitherto there was not as much as 200 acres 
in turnips. Hitherto also the heavy work-oxen, ten or 
twelve of them dragging a primitive and shallow plough, 
at a slow pace and in a serpentine furrow, had been 
imported from the south. Now they began to be bred 
on the spot. By and by cattle grew in numbers ; by 
and by, two horses superseded the team of oxen in the 
plough. 

But the chief factor in evolving Aberdeenshire into a 
cattle-rearing and beef-producing county was the turnip. 
Till turnips began to be grown in a large acreage, no 
provision was possible for the cattle in winter. Hence 
the beasts had to be disposed of in autumn. In 1820, as 
many as 12,000 animals were sent in droves to England. 
The advent of steam navigation in 1827 ended the 
droving. Then began the trade in fat cattle, but it was 
years before the county gained its laurels as the chief 
purveyor of " prime Scots " and the roast beef of Old 
England. The turnip held the key of the position ; but 
turnips will not grow well without manure. The canal 
between Aberdeen and Inverurie carried great quantities 
of crushed bones and guano to raise this important 
crop. 



AGRICULTURE 



81 



Cattle-breeding began with McCombie of Tillyfour 
and the Cruickshanks of Sittyton, one with the native 
black-polled cattle — the Aberdeen-Angus — and the others 
with shorthorns. By dint of careful selection, great 
progress was made in improving not only the symmetry 
of the beasts but their size and beefy qualities. There 




Aberdeen-Angus Bull 



began a furore for cattle- rearing and prizes taken at 
Smithfield made Aberdeen famous. Railway transit 
came in as an additional help, and to-day the Christmas 
market never fails to give its top prices for Aberdeenshire 
beef. 

Every year the beef of 6o,000 cattle leaves the county 
for the southern markets, chiefly London ; this in addition 

M. A. 6 



}2 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



to supplying local needs, and Aberdeen has now 162,000 
of a population. Cattle-rearing and cattle-feeding are 
therefore at the backbone of Aberdeenshire agriculture. 

A recent development is the export of pure-bred short- 
horns to America, more especially the Argentine Republic, 
for breeding purposes. As much as ^1000 has been given 
for a young bull, in this connection. 




Aberdeen Shorthorn Bull 



In the matter of fruit culture, Aberdeen is far behind 
Perthshire and Lanark, w^hich have a richer soil and a 
superior climate. But the Aberdeen straw^berries, grown 
mostly on Deeside, are noted for size and flavour. In 
1909 only 219 acres were devoted to this crop. The 
cultivation of raspberries, which is so great a feature of 



AGRICULTURE 83 

lower Perthshire, has made only a beginning in Aberdeen, 
and the small profits that have come to southern growers 
of this crop in recent years have acted as a deterrent, in 
its extension. 



12. The Granite Industry. 

Aberdeen has long 'been known as " The Granite 
City." It is built of granite, chiefly from its great 
quarries at Rubislaw. The granite is a light grey, some- 
what different in texture and grain from another grey 
granite much in vogue, that of Kemnay on Donside. 
There are many quarries in the county, and each has its 
distinctive colouring. The Peterhead stone is red ; Cor- 
rennie is also red but of a lighter hue. The granite 
industry has made great strides of recent years. The 
modern appliances for boring the rock by steam drills, 
the use of dynamite and other explosives for blasting, as 
well as the devices for hoisting and conveying stones from 
the well of the quarry to the upper levels by means of 
Blondins have all revolutionised the art of quarrying. 

It was long before Aberdeen people realised the value 
of the local rocks for building purposes. The stone used 
in the early ecclesiastical buildings was sandstone, which 
was imported by sea from Morayshire and the Firth of 
Forth. The beginnings of St Machar Cathedral and the 
old church of St Nicholas as well as the church of Grey- 
friars, built early in the sixteenth century and recently 
demolished, were all of sandstone. Not till the seventeenth 

6—2 




Granite Quarry, Kemnay 



THE GRANITE INDUSTRY 85 

century was granite utilised. At first the surface stones 
were taken, then quarrying began about 1604, but little 
was done till 1725. Between 1780 and 1790 as many as 
600 men were employed in the Aberdeen quarries. Great 
engineering works such as the Bell Rock Lighthouse, 
the Thames Embankment, the foundations of Waterloo 
Bridge, the Forth Bridge and London Bridge, where 
great durability and solidity are necessary, were made 
possible by the use of huge blocks from Aberdeenshire. 
The polishing of the stone made a beginning in 1820, and 
now a great export trade in polished work for staircases, 
house fronts, facades, fountains and other ornamental 
purposes is carried on between the county and America 
as well as the British Colonies. 

Apart from building purposes, granite slabs are largely 
used for headstones in graveyards. This monumental 
department employs a great number of skilled workmen. 
There are over 80 granite-polishing yards in Aberdeen. 
Here too the modern methods of cutting and polishing 
the stones by machinery and pneumatic tools have greatly 
reduced the manual labour as well as improved the 
character of the work. Unfortunately the export trade 
in these monumental stones has somewhat declined owing 
to prohibitive tariffs. In 1896 America took ^^ 5 5,452 
worth of finished stones ; in 1909 the value had fallen to 
j/^38,000. The tariffs in France have also been against 
the trade, but an average of nearly 10,000 tons is sent to 
continental countries. Strangely enough, granite in the 
raw state is itself imported to Aberdeen. Swedish, Nor- 
wegian and German granites are brought to Aberdeen, to 



THE GRANITE INDUSTRY 87 

be shaped and polished. These have a grain and colouring 
absolutely different from what is characteristic of the native 
stone, and the taste for novelty and variety has prompted 
their importation. In 1909 as much as 27,308 tons w^ere 
imported in this way. Celtic and Runic crosses, recumbent 
tombs, and statuary are common as exports. 

The stone is also used for the humbler purpose of 
street paving and is shipped to London and other ports in 
blocks of regular and recognised sizes. These are called 
"setts," and of them 30,000 tons are annually transmitted 
to the south. Stones of a larger size are also exported 
for use as pavement kerbs. 

The presence of quarries is not so detrimental to the 
atmosphere and the landscape as coal mines, and yet the 
heaps of debris, of waste and useless stone piled up in great 
sloping ridges near the granite quarries, are undoubtedly 
an eyesore. To-day a means has been found whereby 
this blot on the landscape is partially removed. The 
waste debris is now crushed by special machinery into 
o;ranite meal and gravel, and used as a surface dressing for 
walks and garden paths — a purpose it serves admirably, 
being both cleanly and easily dried. Not only so but 
great quantities of the waste are ground to fine powder, 
and after being mixed with cement and treated to great 
pressure become adamant blocks for pavements. These 
adamant blocks have now superseded the ordinary concrete 
pavement just as it superseded the use of solid granite 
blocks and Caithness flags. This ingenious utilisation of 
the waste has solved the problem which was beginning to 
face many of the larger quarries, namely, how they could 



88 ABERDEENSHIRE 

dispose of their waste without burying valuable agricultural 
land under its mass. 

Granite is the only mineral worthy of mention found 
in the county. Limestone exists in considerable quantities 
here and there, but as a rule it is too far from the railway 
routes to be profitably worked. It is, however, burned 
locally and applied to arable land as a manure. In the 
upper reaches of Strathdon, lime-kilns are numerous. By 
means of peat from the adjoining mosses the limestone 
was regularly burned half a century ago. To-day the 
practice is dwindling. A unique mineral deposit called 
Kieselguhr is found in considerable quantity in the peat- 
mosses of Dinnet, on Deeside. It is really the fossil 
remains of diatoms, and consists almost entirely of silica 
with a trace of lime and iron. When dried it is used as 
a polishing powder for steel, silver and other metals ; but 
its chief use is in the manufacture of dynamite, of which 
it is the absorbent basis. It absorbs from three to four 
times its own weight of nitro-glycerine, which is the 
active property in dynamite. As found in the moss it is 
a layer two feet thick of cheesy light coloured matter, 
which is cut out into oblong pieces like peats. When 
these are dried, they become lighter in colour and ash-like 
in character. The Dinnet deposits are the only deposits 
of the kind in the country. Inferior beds are found in 
Skye. The industry employs 50 hands during the 
summer months, and has been in operation for 28 years. 
The beds show no sign of exhaustion as yet, and the 
demand for the substance is on the increase. 



OTHER INDUSTRIES 89 



13. Other Industries. Paper, Wool, 
Combs. 

The industries apart from agriculture, work in 
granite, and the fisheries are mostly concentrated in 
and around the chief city. These, although numerous, 
are not carried on in a large way, but they are varied ; 
and there is this advantage in the eggs not being all in 
one basket that when depression attacks one trade, its 
effect is only partial and does not affect business as a 
whole. Paper, combs, wool, soap are all manufactured. 
The first of these engages four large establishments on the 
Don and one on the Dee at Culter. Writing paper and 
the paper used for the daily press and magazines as well 
as the coarser kinds of packing paper are all made in 
considerable quantity. Esparto grass and wood pulp are 
imported in connection with this industry. Comb-making 
is also carried on, and the factory in Aberdeen is the 
largest of its kind in the kingdom. 

Textile fabrics are still produced, but the progress made 
in these is not to be compared with the advances made 
in the south of Scotland, where coal is cheap. Weaving 
was introduced at an early period by Flemish settlers, 
who made coarse linens and woollens till the end of the 
sixteenth century, when " grograms " and worsteds, 
broadcloth and friezes were added. Provost Alexander 
Jaffray the elder in 1636 established a house of correction 
— the prototype of the modern reformatory — where 



90 ABERDEENSHIRE 

beggars and disorderly persons were employed in the 
manufacture of broadcloths, kerseys and other stuffs. 
A record of this novelty in discipline survives in the 
Aberdeen street called Correction Wynd. 

In 1703 a joint-stock company w^as formed for 
woollen manufactures at Gordon's Mills on the Don, 
where a fulling-mill had existed for generations, and 
where the making of paper had been initiated a few 
years earlier. The Gordon's Mills developed the manu- 
facture of cloths of a higher quality, half-silk serges, 
damask and plush, and skilled workmen were brought 
from France to guide and instruct the operatives. To- 
day high-class tweeds are made at Grandholm, and 
such is the reputation of these goods for quality and 
durability that in spite of high tariffs they make their 
way into America, where they command a large sale 
at prices more than double of the home prices. 

In the olden days the cloth sold in the home markets 
was a product of domestic industry. The farmers' 
daughters spun the wool of their own sheep into yarn, 
which was sent to county weavers to be made into cloth. 
Aberdeenshire serge made in this way was sold at fairs 
and was hawked about the county by travelling packmen. 

The hosiery trade was worked on similar lines. The 
wool was converted into worsted by rock and spindle, 
and the worsted was knitted into stockings by the women 
and girls of the rural population. One man employed 
as many as 400 knitters and spinners. In the latter half 
of the eighteenth century this industry brought from 
^100,000 to _^ 1 20,000 into Aberdeenshire every year. 



OTHER INDUSTRIES 91 

Stockings were made of such fineness that they cost 20s. 
a pair and occasional rarities were sold at four or five 
guineas. In 177 1 twenty-two mercantile houses were 
engaged in the export trade of these goods, which went 
chiefly to Holland. The merchants attended the weekly 
markets and country fairs, where they purchased the 
products of the knitters' labour. Such work provided a 
source of income to the rural population and was indirectly 
the means of increasing the number of small holdings. 
These were multiplied of set purpose to keep the 
industrious element in the population within the county. 
The invention of the stocking- frame together with the 
dislocation of trade due to the Napoleonic wars made the 
trade unremvmerative and it came to an end with the 
eighteenth century. 

The linen trade began in 1737 at Huntly, where an 
Irishman vmder the patronage and encouragement of the 
Duke of Gordon manufactured yarn and exported it to 
England and the southern Scottish towns. Silk stockings 
were also made there. By and by linen works sprang 
up on the Don at Gordon's Mills and Grandholm as well 
as within Aberdeen itself. The linen trade in the form 
of spinning and hand-loom weaving was carried on in 
most of the towns and villages of the county and several 
new villages grew up in consequence, such as Cumines- 
town, New Byth, Strichen, New Pitsligo, Stuartfield and 
Fetterangus, in some of which the manufacture is con- 
tinued on a small scale to this day. Much flax was 
grown in the county for a time to minister to this 
industry, but gradually the crop disappeared as fibre of 



92 ABERDEENSHIRE 

better quality was imported from Holland. Yet the 
spinning of linen yarn was widely practised as a domestic 
industry when the woollen trade declined, and every 
farmer's daughter made a point of spinning her own 
linen as the nucleus of her future house-furnishings. 
The linen trade, except as regards coarser materials such 
as sacking, has decayed. There is still a jute factory in 
Aberdeen. 

Another industry which employs a large number of 
hands is the preserving of meat, fish, fruit, and vege- 
tables. There are several of these preserving works in 
Aberdeen. Dried and smoked haddocks, usually called 
" Finnan Haddies," from the village of Findon on the 
Kincardineshire coast, are one of the specialities of 
Aberdeen. They had at one time a great vogue, and 
are still largely in demand though the quality has fallen 
off by the adoption of a simpler and less expensive method 
of treatment. 

Ship-building is another industry long established at 
Aberdeen. In the days before iron steamships, fleets of 
swift-sailing vessels known as "Aberdeen Clippers" were 
built on the Dee and made record voyages to China in 
the tea trade and to Australia. The industry of to-day 
is concerned, for the greater part, with the building of 
trawlers and other fishing craft, but occasionally an ocean 
going steamer is launched. The trade is meantime 
suffering from depression. 

Other industries well represented are soap and candle 
making, coach and motor-car building, iron-founding and 
engineering, rope and twine making, the manufacture of 



94 ABERDEENSHIRE 

chemicals, colours and aerated waters. Besides, Aberdeen 
is a great printing centre and many of the books issued 
by London publishers are printed by local presses. 



14. Fisheries. 

Durmg the last quarter of a century the fishing 
industry has made great strides, the value of fish landed 
m Scotland having more than doubled in that period. 
Nowhere has the impetus been more felt than in 
Aberdeenshire, which now contributes as much as one- 
third of the whole product of Scotch fisheries. Since 1 886 
the weight of fish caught round the Scottish coast has 
mcreased from five million hundredweights to over nine 
millions, while the money value has risen in even a 2;reater 
proportion from ;^ 1,403,391, to ^3,149,127. To these 
totals Aberdeen alone has contributed over a hundred 
thousand tons of white fish (excluding herrings), valued 
at over a million pounds sterling. Peterhead and Fraser- 
burgh are also contributors especially as regards herrings, 
the former landing 739,878 hundredweights and Fraser- 
burgh very nearly a similar quantity. These three ports 
amongst them account for one half of all the fish landed at 
Scottish ports. When we consider the number of persons 
collaterally employed in handling this enormous quantity 
of merchandise, the coopers, cleaners, packers, basket 
makers, boat-builders, makers of nets, clerks and so on, 
apart altogether from the army of fishermen employed 
in catching the fish, we see how far-reaching this 



FISHERIES 95 

industry is, not merely in increasing the food-supply of 
the country but in providing profitable employment for 
the population. At Aberdeen, it is estimated, 13,512 
persons are so employed and at the other two ports 
combined, almost a similar number. 

There are two great branches of the fishing industry 
— herrings and white fish. The herrings are caught for 
the most part, though not exclusively, in the summer, 
July being the great month. They are captured with 
nets mostly by steam-drifters as they are called, but also 
to some extent by the ordinary sailing boats of a smaller 
size than the drifters. Fraserburgh and Peterhead land 
in each case double the weight of herrings that come to 
Aberdeen. In recent years a beginning has been made in 
May and June with gratifying success, but July and August 
give the maximum returns. Later on in the year, when 
the shoals have moved along the coast southwards, the 
herring fleets follow them thither, to North Shields and 
Hartlepool, to Yarmouth and Lowestoft ; and bands 
of curers, coopers and workers migrate in hundreds from 
one port to another, employing themselves in curing the 
fish. The bulk of the herrings are cured by salting, and 
are then exported to Germany and Russia, where they 
are much in demand. 

Even more important is the white fishing. Aberdeen 
is here pre-eminent, being perhaps the most important 
fishing centre in the world. The total catch for Scotland 
in 1909 was short of three million hundredweights, of 
which Aberdeen with its large fleet of trawlers and 
steam-liners accounted for 67 per cent. The most 



96 ABERDEENSHIRE 

important of the so-called round fish is the haddock, of 
which over a million hundredweights are landed in 
Scotland, Aberdeen contributing the lion's share, three- 
fourths of the whole. Next to the haddock comes the 
cod, of which nearly three hundred and forty thousand 
hundredweights were handled in the Aberdeen fish 
market. The next fish is ling, and then come whitings, 
saithe, torsk, conger-eels. The flat-fish are also important, 
plaice, witches, megrims, halibut, lemon soles and turbot. 
This last is the scarcest and most highly prized of all 
flat fish, and commands a price next to that given for 
salmon. Ling and halibut are still mostly caught by 
hook and line ; the turbot and the lemon sole on the 
other hand are distinctively the product of the trawl net 
and were little known until trawling was begun. 

A certain small percentage of this great weight el- 
fish is consumed locally, but the great bulk of it is 
packed in ice and dispatched by swift passenger trains 
to the southern markets. The Aberdeen fish market, 
extending for half a mile along the west and north sides 
of the Albert Basin (originally the bed of the Dee) is the 
property of the Town Corporation and is capable of dealing 
with large catches. As much as 760 tons of fish have 
been exposed on its concrete floor in a single day. In the 
early morning the place is one of the sights of the city, 
with the larger fish laid out in symmetrical rows on the 
pavement, and the smaller fish — haddocks, whiting and 
soles — in boxes arranged for the auction sale at 8 a.m. 

The majority of the fishing craft are still sailing 
vessels, but steam-drifters and motor-boats and steam- 




M. A. 



98 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



trawlers are gradually driving the ordinary sail-boats from 
the trade, just as the trawl net is superseding the old- 
fashioned mode of fishins; with set lines. Still about 




Fishwives, The Green, Aberdeen 



86 per cent, of the number of boats employed is made 
up of sailing vessels, but the tonnage is relatively small. 
The quantity of fish caught by hook and line is only 
one-tenth of the whole. 




7—2 



FISHERIES 



101 



'The amount of capital invested in boats and fishing 
gear for all Scotland is estimated by the Fishery Board 
at over ^5,000,000. Of this total, Aberdeenshire claims 
very nearly two millions. It is novi^ the case that the 
value of fish discharged at the fish market of Aberdeen 
is as great as the yearly value of the agricultural land of 
the whole county — truly a marvellous re\olution. 




"tsiti'i 




Fishing Fleet going out, Aberdeen 



The herring fishery was prosecuted ofF the Scottish 
coast by the Dutch, long before the Scotch could be 
induced to take part in it. Many futile attempts were 
made to exploit the industry but little came of them 
till the nineteenth century. A beginning was made at 
Peterhead in 1820 and at Fraserburgh a little earlier. 



102 ABERDEENSHIRE 

Aberdeen followed in 1836 but no great development 
took place till 1870. The first trawler came on the 
scene in 1882 ; to-day there are over 200 local vessels of 
this type besides many from other ports. 

The salmon fishery has long been famous and at one 
time was relatively a source of much greater revenue 
than at present. It still yields a considerable annual 
surplus to the Corporation funds, but has been eclipsed 
by the growth of other fisheries. The rateable value of 
the salmon fishings on the Dee is nearly _^ 19,000 ; those 
of the other salmon rivers — the Don, Ythan and Ugie — 
being much less. The fish are caught by fixed engines 
in the sea — stake-nets and bag-nets — set within a statutory 
radius of the river mouth, and by sweep- or drag-nets in 
the tidal reaches of the rivers. A good many fish are 
caught by rod and line throughout the whole course of 
the rivers but angling is not the commercial side of 
salmon-fish ins. 



15. Shipping and Trade. 

Aberdeenshire has practically but three ports — Fraser- 
buro-h, Peterhead and Aberdeen. The herring fishing; 
with its concomitant activities absorbs the energies of the 
two former so far as shipping is concerned, but Aberdeen 
having to serve a larger and wider area than these two 
northern burghs has developed a range of docks of con- 
siderable extent and importance. During the last forty 
years the Harbour Commissioners have spent ^^3, 000,000 



SHIPPING AND TRADE 



103 



in improving the harbour, increasing the wharfage, adding 
break-waters, diverting the course of the Dee, deepening 
the entrance channel, forming a graving dock and so 
forth. Still, in spite of these outlays, Aberdeen, which 
has been a port for centuries, has hardly grown in shipping 
proportionately to its growth in other respects. The 




At the docks, Aberdeen 

reason is that, except fish, granite and agricultural 
products, the city has nothing of much moment to 
export. 

Exclusive of fishing vessels the tonnage of home and 
foreign going vessels was in 1882. 587,173; in 1909 it 
had advanced to over a million, hardly doubling itself in 
27 years. While its imports have gone up from 522,544 



104 ABERDEENSHIRE 

tons in 1882 to 1,165,060 in 1909, the exports have made 
only a very slight advance. The chief export is herrings, 
and last year nearly 100,000 tons of these, salted and packed 
in barrels, were sent by sea. The fresh fish are dispatched 
by rail. Stones in the form of granite, either polished for 
monumental purposes or in setts and kerbs for paving, 
account for 50,000 tons. The remainder (of 210,554 
tons) is made up by oats, barley, oatmeal, paper, preserved 
provisions, whisky, manures, flax and cotton fabrics, 
woollen cloth, cattle and horses, butter and eggs, salmon 
and pine-wood. 

The trade is mostly a coasting trade and more an 
import than an export one. Coal is the chief article of 
import, 600,000 tons being discharged in a year. Besides 
coal, esparto grass, wood-pulp and rags for paper-making, 
foreign granite in the rough state sent to be polished, 
flour, maize, linseed, the horns of cattle used for comb- 
making, and the salt used in fish-curing, are the chief 
materials landed on the Aberdeen quays. Aberdeen being 
the distributing centre for the county, and all the railway 
routes focussing in it, the coal and the building materials 
not produced in the district, such as lime, slate and cement, 
all pass this way, while the tea and sugar, the tobacco 
and other articles of daily use, also arrive mostly by the 
harbour. 

There are regular lines of steamers between Aberdeen 
and the following ports : London, Newcastle, Hull, 
Liverpool, Glasgow and Leith, as also with continental 
towns such as Hamburg, Rotterdam and Christiania. 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY 105 

i6. History of the County. 

Standing remote from the centre of the country, 
Aberdeenshire has not been fated to figure largely in 
general history. The story of its own evolution from 
poverty to prosperity is an interesting one, but it is only 
now and again that the county is involved in the main 
current of the history of Scotland. 

If the Romans ever visited it, which is highly doubtful, 
they left no convincing evidence of their stay. Of positive 
Roman influence no indication has survived, and no 
conqviest of the district can have taken place. The only 
records of the early inhabitants of the district — usually 
called Picts — are the Eirde houses, the lake dwellings or 
crannogs, the hill forts or duns, the " Druidical " circles 
and standing stones and the flint arrow-heads, all of which 
will be dealt with in a later chapter. 

Christianity had reached the south of Scotland before 
the Romans left early in the fifth century. The first 
missionary who crossed the Mounth was St Ternan, whose 
name survives at Banchory-Ternan on the Dee, the place 
of his death. St Kentigern or St Mungo, the patron saint 
of Glasgow, had a church dedicated to him at Glengairn. 
St Kentigern belonged to the sixth century, and was 
therefore a contemporary of St Columba, who christianised 
Aberdeenshire from lona. In this way two great currents 
met in the north-east. Columba accompanied by his 
disciple Drostan first appeared at Aberdour on the northern 
coast. From Aberdour he passed on through Buchan, and 
having established the Monastery of Deer and left Drostan 



106 ABERDEENSHIRE 

in charge, moved on to other fields of labour. His name 
survives in the fishing village of St Combs. He is the 
tutelar saint of Belhelvie, and the churches of New Machar 
and Daviot were dedicated to him. These facts indicate 
the mode in which Pictland was brought under the 
influence of Christianity. 

The next historical item worthy of mention is the 
ravages of the Scandinavian Vikings. The descents on 
the coast of these sea-rovers were directed against the 
monastic communities, which had gathered some wealth. 
The Aberdeenshire coast, having few inlets convenient 
for the entry of their long boats, was to a large extent 
exempt from their raids, but in 1012 an expedition under 
Cnut, son of Swegen, the king of Denmark, landed at 
Cruden Bay. 

Another fact of interest is the death of Macbeth, who 
for seventeen years had by the help of Thorfinn, the 
Scandinavian (whose name may be seen in the Deeside 
town of Torphins), usurped the kingship of Scotland. 
Malcolm Canmore led an army against him in 105 7, and 
gradually driving him north, beyond the Mounth, over- 
took him at Lumphanan. There Macbeth was slain. 
A Macbeth's stone is said to mark the place where he 
received his death-wound, and Macbeth's Cairn is marked 
by a clump of trees in the midst of cultivated land. The 
farm called Cairnbethie retains the echo of his name. 
Kincardine O'Neil, where Malcolm awaited the result of 
the conflict, commands the ford of the Dee on the ancient 
route of travel from south to north across the Cairn-o- 
Mounth. 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY 107 

Malcolm shortly after passed through Aberdeenshire 
at the head of an expedition against the Celtic population 
which had supported Macbeth. The Norman Conquest, 
nine years thereafter, was the occasion of Anglo-Saxon 
settlements in the county. The court of Malcolm and 
Queen Margaret became a centre of Anglo-Saxon in- 
fluence. The old Gaelic language gave way before the new 
Teutonic speech. The Celtic population made various 
attempts to recover the power that was fast slipping from 
their hands. Malcolm headed a second expedition to 
Aberdeenshire in 1078, and on that occasion granted the 
lands of Monymusk and Keig to the church of St 
Andrews, He is said to have had a hunting-seat in the 
forest of Mar, and the ruined castle of Kindrochit in the 
village of Braemar is associated with this fact. 

The earliest mention of Aberdeen is in a charter of 
Alexander I, granting to the monks of Scone a dwelling 
in each of the principal towns — one of which is Aberdeen. 
A stream of Anglo-Saxons, Flemings and Scandinavians 
had been gradually flowing towards the settlement at the 
mouth of the Dee, where they pursued their handicrafts 
and established trade with other ports. William the Lion 
frequently visited the town and ultimately built a royal 
residence, which after a time was gifted to the Trinity or 
Red Friars for a monastery. The bishopric of Aberdeen 
dates from 1 1 50. 

Edward I of England in 1 296 at the head of a large 
army paid these northern parts a visit. He entered the 
county by the road leading from Glenbervie to Durris, 
whence he proceeded to Aberdeen, exacting homage from 



108 ABERDEENSHIRE 

the burghers during his five days' stay. From Aberdeen 
he went to Kintore and Fyvie and on to Speyside, return- 
ing by the Cabrach, Kildrummy, Kincardine O'Neil and 
the Cairn-o-Mounth. 

The next year Wallace, in his patriotic efforts to clear 
the country from English domination, surprised Edward's 
garrison at Aberdeen, but unable to effect anything, hastily 
withdrew from the neighbourhood. Edward was back 
in Aberdeen in 1303 and paid another visit to Kildrummy 
Castle, then in the possession of Bruce. Then Bruce, 
having fled from the English court and assassinated the 
Red Comyn at Dumfries, was crowned at Scone and the 
long struggle for national independence began in earnest. 
In 1307 he came to Aberdeen, which was favourable to 
his cause. At Barra, not far from Inverurie and Old 
Meldrum, his forces met those of the Earl of Buchan 
(John Comyn) and defeated them (1308). It was not a 
great battle in itself, but its consequences were important. 
It marked the turn of the tide in the national cause. 
The Buchan district, in which the battle took place, 
had long been identified with the powerful family of the 
Comyns ; and after his victory at Barra, Bruce devastated 
the district with relentless fury. This " harrying of 
Buchan," as it has been called, is referred to by Barbour 
as an event bemoaned for more than fifty years. The 
family of the Comyns was crushed, and their influence, 
which had been liberal and considerate to the native race 
of Celts, came to an end. The whole of the north-east 
turned to Bruce's support, and in a short time all Edward's 
garrisons disappeared. This upheaval created a fresh 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY 109 

partition of the lands of Aberdeenshire. New families 
such as the Hays, the Frasers, the Gordons and the 
Irvines, were rewarded for faithful service by grants of 
land. The re-settlement of the county from non-Celtic 
sources accentuated the Teutonic element in the county. 
After Bannockburn, Bruce rewarded Aberdeen itself for 
its support by granting to the burgesses the burgh as well 
as the forest of Stocket. 

The great event of the fifteenth century was the 
Battle of Harlaw, which took place in 141 1 at no great 
distance from the site of the Battle of Barra. It was 
really a conflict between Celt and Saxon, and was a 
despairing effort on the part of the dispossessed native 
population to re-establish themselves in the Lowlands. 
The Highlanders were led by Donald of the Isles, who 
gathering the clansmen of the northern Hebrides, Ross 
and Lochaber, and sweeping through Moray and Strath- 
bogie, arrived at the Garioch on his way to Aberdeen. 
The burghers placed themselves under the leadership of 
the Earl of Mar (Alexander Stewart, son of the Wolf of 
Badenoch), a soldier who had seen much service in various 
parts of the world. The provost of the city, Robert 
Davidson, led forth a body of his fellow-citizens and 
joined Mar's forces at Inverurie, within three miles of 
the Highlanders' camp. The two forces were unequally 
matched — Donald having 10,000 men and Mar only a 
tenth of that number, but of these many were mail-clad 
knights on horseback and armed with spears. It was a 
fiercely contested battle and lasted till the darkness of a 
July night. The slaughter on both sides was great, but 



110 ABERDEENSHIRE 

the tide of barbarism was driven back. The Highlanders 
retreated whence they came and the county of Aberdeen 
was saved from the imminent peril of a Celtic recrudes- 
cence. This is the only really memorable battle associated 
with Aberdeenshire soil. Its " red " field, on which so 
many prominent citizens shed their life-blood (Provost 
Davidson and Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum being of the 
number), was long remembered as a dreary and costly 
victory. 

Another battle of much less significance was that of 
Corrichie, fought in Queen Mary's reign in 1562 on the 
eastern slope of the Hill of Fare, not far from Banchory. 
It was a contest between James Stewart (the Regent 
Murray, and half-brother of the Queen) and the Earl of 
Huntly. Huntly was defeated and slain, and his son, Sir 
John Gordon, who was taken prisoner, was afterwards 
executed at Aberdeen. Queen Mary, it is said, was a 
spectator both of the battle and of the execution. 

In the seventeenth century, at the beginning of the 
Covenanting "troubles," Aberdeenshire gained a certain 
notoriety as being the place where the sword was first 
drawn. In 1639 the Covenanters mustered at Turriff 
under Montrose, to the number of 800. The Royalist 
party under the Earl of Huntly, to the number of 2000 
but poorly armed, marched to the town with the intention 
of preventing the Covenanters from meeting, but they 
were already in possession, and when Huntly 's party saw 
how matters stood, they passed on, the two forces 
surveying each other at close quarters without hostile 
act or word. This bloodless affair is known as the first 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY 111 

Raid of Turriff. A few weeks later a somewhat similar 
encounter took place, when the Covenanters, completely 
surprised, fled without striking a blow. The loss on either 
side was trifling, still some blood was actually shed, and 
the Trot of Turriff, as it was called, became the first 
incident in a long line of mighty events. 

Montrose, both when he was leading on the side of 
the Covenant, and later when he became a Royalist 
leader, paid several visits to Aberdeen, which, although 
supporting the Royalist cause, suffered exactions from 
both parties. In 1644 Montrose made a forcible entry 
of the town, which resulted in the death of 150 Cove- 
nanters, and in the plundering of the city. Later on, after 
his victory over Argyll at Inverlochy, Montrose gained a 
success for the Royalist cause at Alford (1645). 

In 1650, after the execution of Charles I, his son 
Charles II landed at Speymouth, and on his way south 
to be crowned at Scone, visited Aberdeen, where he was 
received with every manifestation of loyalty and good- 
will. The next year General Monk paid the town a 
visit, and left an English garrison, which remained till 
1659. The Restoration was hailed with rejoicing : the 
Revolution with dislike. Yet at the Rebellion of 17 15 
scant enthusiasm was roused for the cause of the Pretender, 
who himself passed through the city on his way from 
Peterhead to Fetteresso. In the thirty years that passed 
before the second Jacobite Rebellion, public sentiment 
had grown more favourable to the reigning House. The 
'45 therefore received little support in Aberdeenshire. 
A few of the old county families threw in their lot with 



112 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



the Prince, but the general body of the people were 
averse to taking arms. The Duke of Cumberland, on 
his way north to meet Prince Charlie at CuUoden, re- 
mained with his army six weeks in the city ; when he 
started on his northward march through Old Meldrum, 
Turriff and Banff, he left a garrison of 200 men in Robert 
Gordon's Hospital, lately built but not yet opened. After 
Culloden small pickets of troops were stationed in the 
Highland districts of the county, to suppress the practice 
of cattle-lifting. Braemar Castle and Corgarff Castle 
in the upper reaches of the Dee and the Don still bear 
evidence of their use as garrison forts. The problem of 
dealing with the inhabitants of the higher glens, where 
agriculture was useless, and where the habits of the people 
prompted to raiding and to rebellion, was solved by en- 
listing the young men in the British Army. The Black 
Watch (42nd) as reorganised (1758) and a regiment of 
Gordon Highlanders (1759) were largely recruited from 
West Aberdeenshire, and this happy solution closed the 
military history of the district. 



17. Antiquities — Circles, Sculptured 
Stones, Crannogs, Forts. 

Aberdeenshire is particularly rich in stone-circles. 
No fewer than 175 of them have been recorded as 
existing in the district. Unfortunately many of them 
entirely disappeared when the sites were turned to agri- 
cultural uses ; others have been mutilated, and owing to 



ANTIQUITIES 



113 



the removal of some of the stones, stand incomplete ; a 
few have been untouched, and from these we may judge 
what the others were like. One of the best preserved is 
that at Parkhouse, a mile south-west of the Abbey of 
Deer. A circle of great blocks of stone, irregular and of 
unequal height, some standing erect, some evidently fallen 
down, is the general feature. Sometimes inside the circle, 
but more usually in the circumference of the circle itself, 
there is one conspicuously larger stone, in a recumbent 
position. This it has been usual to call the rostrum or 
altar stone. It is well marked at Parkhouse, being 14 




White Cow Wood Cairn Circle; View from the S.W. 
From Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1903-4 

feet 9 inches long, 5 feet 9 inches high, and estimated to 
weigh 20 tons. The so-called rostrum is usually on the 
south side of the circle and the stones facing it on the 
north are of smaller size. 

The size of the circles varies, the largest being over 
60 feet in diameter, the smaller ones less than 30. Park- 
house measures 50 feet. They are found all over the 
county, in the valley of the Dee, in the valley of the Don 
at Alford, Inverurie and Dyce, as well as in Auchterless, 
Methlick, Crimond and Lonmay. The recumbent stone 

M. A. 8 




Palaeolithic Flint Implement 
{From Kent's CcZ'-ueni, Torquay) 




Neolithic Celt of Greenstone 

[From Bridlington, Torks.) 



ANTIQUITIES 115 

is invariably a feature of the larger circles. One of the 
largest is in the circle at Old Keig in Alford — a huge 
monolith computed to be 30 tons in weight. Other 
good examples are at Auchquorthies, Fetternear and at 
Balquhain near Inveramsay. 

In the smaller and simpler circles, there is no recum- 
bent stone, and the blocks are of more uniform height. 

What the circles were used for is still a matter of 
dispute. They have for long been called " Druidical " 
circles, and the received opinion was that they were 
places of worship, the recumbent stone being the altar. 
But there is no certitude in this view ; and, indeed, the 
fact that several exist at no great distance from each other 
(more than a dozen are located in Deer) would seem to 
be adverse to it. They were certainly used as places of 
burying, and some antiquarians hold that they were the 
burying grounds of the people of the Bronze Age. A 
later theory is that they were intended to be astronomical 
clocks to a people who knew nothing of the length of 
the year, and who had no almanacs to guide them in the 
matter of the seasons. The stone-circles, however, still 
remain an unsolved problem. 

Besides the circles, Aberdeenshire has another class 
of archaeological remains, called sculptured stones. These 
are of three kinds : (i) those with incised symbols 
only, (2) those with in addition Celtic ornament carved 
in relief, and (3) monuments with Celtic ornament in 
relief and no symbols. The first class is the only one 
largely represented in Aberdeenshire and a good many 
representatives are in existence. The symbols most com- 

8—2 



116 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



monly seen are the crescent and sceptre, the spectacles, 
the mirror and comb, and the so-called "elephant" symbol. 




Stone at Logie, in the Garioch (4 feet high) 
From Anderson's Scot, in Early C/i. Times, 2nd Series 

a representation of a beast with long jaws, a crest and 
scroll feet. Another is the serpent symbol. What the 



ANTIQUITIES 117 

symbols signify is still a mystery, but the fact that the 
stones with symbolism are unusually common in what 
was known as Northern Pictland seems to point to their 
being indigenous to that area. Out of 124 stones in the 
first class Aberdeenshire has 42. It would seem as if the 
county had been the focus where the symbolism originated. 
The richness of the locality round Kintore and Inverurie 
in symbol stones is taken to indicate that region as the 
centre from which they radiated. 

Another form of archaeological remains found in the 
county is the Eirde or Earth-Houses. These are subter- 
ranean dwellings dug out of the ground and walled with 
unhewn, unmortared stones, each stone overlapping the 
one below until they meet at the top which is crowned 
with a larger flag-stone, or sometimes with wood. The 
probability is that in conjunction with the underground 
chambers there were huts above ground, which, being 
composed of wood, have now entirely disappeared. At 
many points in these earth-houses traces of fire and char- 
coal are to be seen, stones blackened by fire and layers of 
black ashes. In one at Loch Kinnord a piece of the 
upper stone of a quern as well as an angular piece of iron 
was found. It may be inferred that the inhabitants, 
whoever they were, were agriculturists, and that the 
period of occupation lasted down to the Iron Age. 
Specimens of these houses, which usually go by the local 
name of Picts' houses, are found in the neighbourhood 
of Loch Kinnord on Deeside, at Castle Newe on the 
Don, and at Parkhouse, not far from the circle already 
referred to. 



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ANTIQUITIES 119 

The common notion of the purpose of these under- 
ground dwelh'ngs was that they were meant for hiding- 
places in wliich the inhabitants took refuge when unable 
to resist their enemies in the open, but if, as has now 
been discovered, they were associated with wooden 
erections above ground, they could not have served this 
purpose. On the surface beside them were other houses, 
cattlefolds and other enclosures ; once an enemy was in 
possession of these, he could hardly miss the earth-houses. 
Moreover, the inhabitants, if discovered, were in a trap 
from which there was no escape. It is more probable 
that the dwellings were adjuncts of some unknown kind 
to the huts on the surface. The fact that pottery and 
bronze armlets have been unearthed from these under- 
ground caverns proves that the earth-dwellers had 
reached a certain advancement in civilisation. They 
reared domestic animals, wove cloth and sewed it, and 
manufactured pottery. They used iron for cutting 
weapons and bronze for ornament, and must have pos- 
sesssed a wonderfully high standard of taste and manual 
skill. 

Along with the earth-houses at Kinnord are- found 
crannogs or lake-dwellings. Artificial islands were created 
in the loch by forming a raft of logs, upon which layers 
of stones and other logs were deposited. As fresh 
materials were added the raft gradually sank till it rested 
on the bottom. The sides were afterwards strengthened 
with the addition of stones and beams. In this way was 
formed what is called the Prison Island on Loch Kinnord. 
In all probability the other island in the same loch, the 



ANTIQUITIES 121 

Castle Island, may also be artificial, although it has usually 
been regarded as natural. Crannogs in pairs — one large 
and the other small — occur in several lochs. 

A number of hill-forts, more or less disintegrated, are 
traceable in the higher ground in the vicinity of Lochs 
Kinnord and Davan. These show concentric lines of 
circumvallation, with stronger fortifications at various 
points. Vitrified forts, where the stones have been run 
together by the application of heat, are found at Dunni- 
deer near Insch, and on the conical summit of Tap o' Noth 
near Rhynie. The Barmekin at Dunecht encloses an area 
of more than two acres, and consists of five concentric 
walls, three of earth-works and two of stone. 

Numerous cairns, barrows or tumuli exist all over 
the county, at Aberdour on the coast, at Birse, Bourtie, 
Rhynie, Turriff, and elsewhere. Human remains have 
been found in most of these ; and as a rule flint arrow- 
heads and other implements are also associated with 
them. 



i8. Architecture — (a) Ecclesiastical. 

The history of Scotland from an architectural point 
of view does not reach very far back into the past. Till 
the tide of civilisation flowed into Scotland from the south 
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, there existed in the 
country no architecture worthy of the name. When the 
Normans became the ruling power in Britain, they brought 
architectural ideas with them and these superseded the 



122 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



crude attempts at church building hitherto made. The 
Scottish churches built under the influence of Columba 
were simple and rude, consisting of a small oblong cham- 
ber with a single door and a single window. The Norman 
style, which obliterated these structures, dates from the 
twelfth century and, being carried along the coast of low- 
land Scotland, gradually changed the manner of building. 
It is characterised by simple, massive forms and especially 
by arches of a semi-circular shape, sometimes enriched by 
zig-zag, and by the use of nook shafts and cushion capitals. 
Of this period the remains in Scotland are not numerous, 
and they are very few in Aberdeenshire. The earliest 
specimen we can point to is the ancient church of 
Monymusk, which contains some Norman building in- 
corporated in the modern church erected on the old site. 
Monymusk is on Donside seven miles up the river from 
Kintore. It is a place of great antiquity. The Culdees 
first appear there in the twelfth century, and the Earl of 
Mar built a convent for them on condition that they 
should submit to canonical rule. The lower part of the 
church tower and the chancel arch are of the Norman 
style. The tower has been entirely rebuilt except the 
lower doorway, which has a round arch-head with a hood 
mould enclosing it. These small fragments suggest that 
they were part of the convent erected by the Earl of Mar 
very early in the thirteenth century. 

The rounded arch gave place in the thirteenth cen- 
tury to the early Gothic, of which the most striking feature 
is the pointed arch. This is the First Pointed Period. 
Ornament was more general, the mouldings were richer 



ARCHITECTURE— ECCLESIASTICAL 123 

and more graceful and the foliage of trees was occasionally 
copied. The windows were narrow, lofty and pointed, 
giving an impression of space and lightness. Aberdeen- 
shire is too far north to have developed many examples of 
this early style, but it has some. The Abbey of Deer is 
perhaps the most ancient ecclesiastical building, but it is 
now a complete ruin, all the best parts of it having dis- 
appeared within the last fifty years. It was founded in the 
thirteenth century. Deer had been an ecclesiastical centre 
long before that time. The story goes that Columba and 
his pupil Drostan travelled from lona to Aberdeenshire 
when Bede was Mormaer (Earl) of Buchan. They were 
first at Aberdour on the coast, but ultimately journeyed 
to Deer, where Columba requested the Mormaer to grant 
him a site for a church. At first the Mormaer refused, 
but his son fell ill and in consideration of the efficacy of 
the prayers of the two holy men in bringing the youth 
back to health, the Mormaer granted them the lands of 
Deer and this was probably the first place in Aberdeen- 
shire where a regular Christian church was erected. No 
trace of that church, built in the sixth century, is left. 

The Abbey was an entirely diff^erent structure and not 
begun till early in the thirteenth century. It was founded 
by William Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and was really a 
Cistercian Abbey, originally occupied by monks sent from 
Kinloss. From the ruins now within the grounds of 
Pitfour House, it can be made out that the length of the 
building (nave and chancel) was 150 feet. A few mould- 
ings and the arches of some windows indicate that it 
belonged to the first pointed period. The building was 



124 ABERDEENSHIRE 

of red sandstone probably brought from New Byth, some 
12 miles distant. After the Reformation the Abbey fell 
to decay and its walls became, as in many other cases, a 
quarry from which other buildings were erected. In 1809 
the ruins were enclosed with a wall by the then proprietor, 
Mr James Ferguson of Pitfour, but since then they have 
dwindled. 

No mention of Deer is possible without reference to 
the famous Book of Deer — a manuscript volume of the 
highest value, emanating not from the Abbey but from 
Columba's monastery in the same region. The book 
was brought to light in i860 by the late Mr Henry 
Bradshaw, University Librarian at Cambridge. It had 
lain vmrecognised in the Library since 171 5. It contains 
the Gospel of St John and other portions of scripture in 
the writing of the ninth century; but of even greater 
importance is the fact that on its margins it contains 
memoranda of grants to the monastery, made by Celtic 
chiefs of Buchan and all written in Gaelic. These 
jottings are of the highest historical value. 

Some traces of the Early Pointed style are found 
in St Machar Cathedral (the greater part of which, 
however, is much later). The old church of Auchindoir 
close to Craig Castle has a good doorway and other features 
of this period. 

From the middle of the fourteenth to the middle 
of the fifteenth century (i 350-1450) is in Scotland the 
Middle Pointed Period. The windows were made larger, 
the vaulting and buttresses less heavy. The Cathedral of 
St Machar belongs in part to this time. The legend goes 




From The Book oj Deer 



126 ABERDEENSHIRE 

that St Machar in obedience to the commands of Columba, 
of whom he was a disciple, journeyed to Scotland and 
at Old Aberdeen founded a church. This church in 
the twelfth century became the seat of a bishopric 
founded by David I. The original church was super- 
seded probably about 1165, the only relic of this Norman 
period being part of the abacus of a square pier. All 
other traces of earlier work have vanished. In the four- 
teenth century Bishop Alexander Kyninmonth II rebuilt 
the nave, partly of red sandstone with foliated capitals 
of great beauty and decorated with naturalistic imitation 
of leafage, one capital representing curly kail (colewort). 
The same kind of decoration is seen in Melrose Abbey. 
Later on the two impressive western towers, which are 
to-day conspicuous objects in the eastern landscape to all 
travellers northward-bound from Aberdeen, were added. 
They form a granite mass of solid and substantial masonry, 
and, being finished with machicolation, parapet-paths and 
capehouses, were really like a castle in Early English 
architecture. Still later on, in the sixteenth century. 
Bishop Elphinstone, who founded the University of 
Aberdeen, who built the first Bridge of Dee, and gave 
a new choir to St Nicholas Church, completed the central 
tower and placed in it fourteen bells " tuneable and 
costly." The sandstone spires over the western towers 
were added by Bishop Dunbar early in the sixteenth 
century, in place of the original capehouses. The central 
tower fell in 1688, crushing the transepts. 

In 1560 the government ordered the destruction of 
the altars, images and other monuments of the old faith, 




St Machar Cathedral, Old Aberdeen 



128 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



and this cathedral suffered with the rest. It was despoiled 
of all its costly ornaments and the choir was demolished. 
The roof was stripped of its lead and the bells were carried 
ofF. All that remains to-day is the nave (now the parish 
church), a south porch, the western towers and frag- 
ments of the transept walls, which contain tombs of 




St Machar Cathedral (interior) 

Bishop Lichtoun, Bishop Dunbar, and others. This is 
the only granite cathedral in the country, and, though 
dating from the Middle and late Pointed periods, has 
reminiscences of the Norman style in its short, massive 
cylindrical pillars and plain unadorned clerestory windows. 
Another feature is the great western window divided by 



ARCHITECTURE— ECCLESIASTICAL 129 

six long shafts of stone. The finely carved pulpit now 
in the Chapel of King's College is a relic of the wood- 
carvings destroyed in 1649. The whole is extremely 
plain but highly impressive and imposing. Its flat panelled 
oak ceiling decorated with heraldic shields of various 
European kings, Pope Leo X, and Scottish ecclesiastics 




King's College, Aberdeen University 



and nobility (48 in all) is worthy of mention. This 
heraldic ceiling was restored in 1868-71. 

Of later date is King's College Chapel, at no great 
distance from the Old Cathedral. It is a long, narrow 
but handsome building begun in 1 500, shortly after the 
foundation of the University by Bishop Elphinstone. 
The chapel and its graceful tower are the oldest parts of 
the College buildings which had originally three towers. 

M. A. q 



130 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



The surviving one is a massive structure buttressed nearly 
to the top and bearing aloft a lantern of crossed rib 
arches, surmounted by a beautiful imperial crown w^ith 
finial cross, somewhat resembling St Giles's in Edinburgh. 
The difference is that Kind's College has four ribs while 




East and West Churches, Aberdeen 

St Giles's has eight. The whole is of freestone from 
Morayshire. The entire bviilding is a mixture of Scottish 
and French Gothic styles, and retains in the large western 
window the semi-circular arch, a peculiarity of Scottish 
Gothic throughout all periods. The canopied stalls and 



ARCHITECTURE— ECCLESIASTICAL 131 

the screen of richly carved oak, Gothic in design and 
most beautifully handled, take a place among the finest 
pieces of mediaeval carved work existing in the British 
Empire. Their beauty and delicacy, according to Hill 
Burton, surpass all remains of a similar kind in Scotland. 
The chapel contains the tomb of Bishop Elphinstone. It 
was once highly ornamented, but meantime is covered 
with a plain marble slab. Its restoration is in prospect. 

St Nicholas Church, Aberdeen (now the East and 
West Churches) contains in its transepts and groined 
crypt and in its wood-carving, interesting relics of twelfth, 
fifteenth and sixteenth century work. The nave was 
rebuilt in the Renaissance style of the time (1755). 

Greyfriars Church, removed a few years ago to make 
way for the new front of Marischal College, was a pre- 
Reformation church, built by Alexander Galloway, Rector 
of Kinkell, early in the sixteenth century. Its chief 
features were its range of buttresses and a fine seven-light, 
traceried window. 

The Protestant churches that succeeded these ancient 
buildings were inferior as architecture. It was only in 
the nineteenth century that taste began to revive and 
some attempt at grace and embellishment was made. 
Architects began to study old styles, and this combined 
with the increasing wealth of the country created a new 
standard in ecclesiastical requirements. To-day our 
churches tend to grow in architectural beauty. 



9—2 



132 ABERDEENSHIRE 



19. Architecture — (/?) Castellated. 

The earliest fortifications in Scotland were earthen 
mounds, surrounded with wooden palisades. They were 
succeeded by stone and lime " keeps " built in imitation 
of Norman structures. The presence of the Normans 
in England during the eleventh and twelfth centuries 
drove the Saxon nobility northwards, and they were 
followed in turn by other Normans, who obtained pos- 
session of great tracts of country. The rectangular 
keeps of the Normans have in consequence formed the 
models on which most of the Scottish castles were con- 
structed. In the thirteenth century there were castles 
at Strathbogie, Fyvie, Inverurie and Kildrummy. These 
have mostly been rebuilt in recent times and the more 
ancient parts have disappeared. The general idea in 
them all was a fortified enclosure usually quadrilateral. 
The walls of the enclosure were 7 to 9 feet thick and 20 
to 30 feet high. The angles had round or square towers, 
and the walls had parapets and embrasures for defence and 
a continuous path round the top of the ramparts. The 
entrance was a wide gate guarded by a portcullis. The 
comparatively large area within the walls was intended to 
harbour the population of a district and to give temporary 
protection to their flocks and possessions in times of danger. 
Some of the finer examples, such as Kildrummy, closely 
resemble the splendid military buildings of France in the 
thirteenth century. One of the towers is usually larger 
than the others and forms the donjon or place of strength, 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED 1 33 

to which retreat could be made as a last resort, when, 
during a siege, the enemy had gained a footing within 
the walls. 




Kildrummy Castle 



Kildrummy Castle is one of the finest and largest in 
Scotland, and even in its present ruinous condition gives 
an impression of grandeur and extent such as no other 



134 ABP]RDEENSHIRE 

castle in Aberdeenshire can rival. It was built in the 
reign of Alexander II by Gilbert de Moravia, Bishop of 
Caithness. Situated near the river Don, some ten miles 
inland from Alford, and occupying a strong position on 
the top of a bank vv^hich slopes steeply to a burn on two 
sides, and protected on the other sides by an artificial 
fosse, it was a place of great strength. Its plan is an 
irregular quadrangle, the south front bulging out in the 
centre towards the gateway. It had six round towers, 
one at each angle and two at the gate. One of the 
corner towers — the Snow Tower — 55 feet in diameter, 
was the donjon and contained the draw-well. The castle 
possessed a large courtyard, a great hall, and a chapel, of 
which the window of three tall lancets survives. It was 
built in the thirteenth century, and therefore belongs to 
the First Pointed Period. The stone used is a sandstone, 
probably taken from the t]uarries in the locality, where 
instead of the prevailing granite of Aberdeenshire a great 
band of sandstone occurs. 

This famous castle passed through various vicissitudes. 
It was besieged in 1306 by Edward I of England and was 
gallantly defended, but, in consequence of a great confla- 
gration, Nigel Bruce, King Robert's brother, who was 
acting as governor, yielded it to the English, he himself 
being made prisoner and ultimately executed. Some of 
the buildings date from this period, when it was rebuilt 
by the English, but it soon fell into Bruce's hands again. 
Twenty years after Bannockburn it was conferred on the 
Earl of Mar. The rebellion of 17 15 was hatched within 
its walls. Thereafter being forfeited by Mar, it eventually 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED i:^5 

came into the hands of the Gordons of Wardhouse. 
Recently it was purchased by Colonel Ogston, who has 
built a modern mansion-house close by and crossed the 
ravine with a bridge, an exact replica of the historic 
Bridge of Balgownie near Donmouth. 

During the fourteenth century, Scotland, exhausted 
with the struggle for national independence, was unable 
to engage in extensive building. Beside, Bruce's policy 
was opposed to castle building, as such edifices were liable 
to be captured by the enemy and a secure footing thereby 
obtained. His policy was rather to strip the country, and 
to destroy everything in front of an invading army, with 
a view to starving it out. The houses of the peasantry 
were made of wood and could easily be restored when 
destroyed. The houses of the nobility took the form of 
square towers on the Norman model and all castles of the 
fourteenth century were on this simple plan — a square or 
oblong tower with very thick walls and defended from a 
parapeted path round the top of the tower. The angles 
were rounded or projected on corbels in the form of round 
bartizans. At first these parapets were open and machi- 
colated. As time went on, the simple keep was extended 
by adding on a small wing at one corner, which gave the 
ground plan of the whole building the shape of the letter 
L. The entrance was then placed as a rule at the re- 
entering angle. Such keeps are usually spoken of as built 
on the L plan. The ground floor was vaulted and used 
for stores or stables and as accommodation for servants. 
The only communication between this and the first floor 
was a hatch. In early castles the principal entrance was 



136 ABERDEENSHIRE 

often on the floor above the ground floor and was reached 
by a stair easily removed in time of danger. Access from 
one storey to another was by a corkscrew or newel stair 
at one corner in the thick wall. Thus constructed a 
tower could resist siege and fire, and even if taken, could 
not be easily damaged. 

Of this kind of keep Aberdeenshire has many excellent 
examples, the most perfect, perhaps, being the Tower of 
Drum. It stands on a ridge overlooking the valley of the 
Dee. To the ancient keep built probably late in the 
thirteenth century was added a mansion-house on a 
different plan in 1619. The estate was granted to 
William de Irvine by Bruce in recognition of faithful 
service as secretary and armour-bearer. Previous to that, 
Drum was a royal forest and a hunting-seat of the king. 
The keep, which stands as solid and square to-day as it 
did six hundred years ago, is quadrilateral and the angles 
are rounded off. The entrance was at the level of the 
first floor. The main stair is a newel. In the lowest 
storey the walls are twelve feet thick, pierced with two 
narrow loops for light. In a recess is the well. On the 
top of the tower are battlements, the parapet resting on 
a corbel-table continued right round the building. 

Hallforest near Kintore is an example of a fourteenth 
century keep. It was built by Bruce as a hunting-seat 
and bestowed on Sir Robert de Keith, the Marischal. It 
still belongs to the Kintore family but is now a ruin. 

The fifteenth century brought a change in castle- 
building. The accommodation of the keeps was' circum- 
scribed and the paucity of rooms made privacy impossible. 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED 137 

One way of extending the space was, as we have said, 
by adding a wing at one corner. Another mode was to 
utilise the surrounding wall, for the keeps were generally 
guarded by a wall, which formed a courtyard or barmekin 
for stabling and offices. This was often of considerable 
extent and defended by towers. As the country pro- 
gressed and manners improved, buildings were extended 
round the inside of the courtyard walls. In the sixteenth 
century the change went further and developed into the 
mansion-house built round a quadrangle. The building 
was first in the centre of the surrounding wall ; ultimately 
the courtyard was absorbed and became the centre of the 
castle. 

Balquhain Castle in Chapel of Garioch, two miles 
from Inverurie, was originally a keep like Drum, but 
being destroyed in 1526, it was rebuilt. . Very little of it 
now remains but its massive, weather-stained walls have 
a commanding effect. The barmekin is still traceable. 
Queen Mary is said to have passed the night prior to the 
Battle of Corrichie at Balquhain. It was burned in 1746 
by the Duke of Cumberland. 

Many other castles on the same general plan are 
dotted up and down the county. Some are in ruins, some 
have been altered and added to on other lines, but the 
original keep is still a marked feature in most of them. 
Cairnbulg — recently restored — on the north-east coast 
has a keep of the fifteenth century with additions of a 
century later. Gight, now ruinous, but formerly cele- 
brated for its great strength, occupies a fine site on the 
summit of the Braes of Gight, which rise abruptly from 



138 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



the bed of the Ythan. It also is a fifteenth century 
edifice built on the L plan. It has a historical interest 
as having once belonged to Lord Byron's mother, from 
whom it was purchased by the Earl of Aberdeen. 
Another of the same kind is Craig Castle in Auchindoir. 
It was completed in 15 18 and is also on the L plan. So 
too is Fedderat in New Deer. 




The Old House of Gight 

In the sixteenth century the troubled reign of Queen 
Mary was unfavourable to architecture, but towards the 
end of it the rise of Renaissance art began to exert a decided 
influence, especially on details and internal furnishings, 
and in the next century gradually but completely domi- 
nated the spirit of the art. Another influence at work 
was the progress made in artillery. Fhe ordinary castles 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED 139 

could not now resist artillery fire, and all attempts at 
making them impregnable fortresses were abandoned, and 
the only fortifications retained were such as would make 
the buildings safe from sudden attack. In consequence, 
what had before been grim fortresses were now trans- 
formed into country mansions, whether on the keep or on 
the quadrangle plan ; and sites were chosen as providing 
shelter from the elements rather than defence against 
human foes. The Reformation, too, which secularised 
the church lands and gave the lion's share to the nobility, 
was a notable influence in revolutionising architecture. 
The nobility being now more wealthy were enabled either 
to extend their old mansions or to build new ones. Hence 
the great development that took place in the quiet reign 
of James VI. The effect of the Union in 1603, which 
drew many of the nobility to England, was civilising and 
educative, and raised their ideas of house accommodation 
as well as their standard of comfort and domestic amenity. 
The change was of course gradual. The old keeps 
and the castles built round a courtyard were still in 
evidence, but picturesque turrets corbelled out at every 
angle of the building, slated, and terminating in fanciful 
finials, became the rule. The lower walls were kept 
plain, the ornamentation being lavishly crowded only on 
the upper parts. The roofs became high-pitched with 
picturesque chimneys, dormer windows and crow-stepped 
gables. All these features so characteristic of the mansion- 
houses of the fourth period (1542-1700) are well marked 
in Craigievar, which is one of the best preserved castles of 
the time. Its ground plan is of the L type, but the turrets 



140 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



and gables are corbelled out with ornamental mouldings 
and the upper part of the castle displays that profusion of 




_j|J|| 



^■r^Wi^. 





Ciaigievar Castle, Donside 



sky-pointing pinnacles and multifarious parapets which 
mark the period. The same is seen at Crathes and at 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED 141 

Castle Eraser. The last is altogether an excellent specimen. 
It consists of a central oblong building with two towers 
at the diagonally opposite ends, one square and the other 
round, and is therefore a development into what has been 
called the Z plan or stepped plan— induced by the general 




Crathes Castle, Kincardineshire 



use of firearms in defence. Here, as at Craigievar, gar- 
goyles originally used to carry off rain water from the 
roof are brought in as a piece of fanciful decoration, apart 
from any utilitarian purpose, and project from the walls 
at places where rain-spouts are irrelevant. 

The castle has a secret chamber or " lug," in which 



142 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



the master of the house could over-hear the conversation 
of his guests in the dining-hall. Nothing could better 
illustrate the treachery and cvmning which had been bred 
by the difficulty of the times. Mr Skene, the friend of Sir 
Walter Scott, minutely investigated this contrivance as it 




Castle Fraser 



exists at Castle Fraser, and no doubt his account of this 
ingenious but dishonourable device for gaining illicit 
information suggested King James's "Lug," so happily 
described in The Fortunes of Nigel, 

Castellated buildings of this class are so numerous in 
Aberdeenshire that it is possible to name only a few. 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED 1 43 

One of the finest is Fyvie Castle on the banks of the 
upper reaches of the Ythan in the very centre of the 
county. It is not like many others a ruin, but a mansion- 
house modernised in many respects, but still retaining all 
the picturesque features of the olden time. It occupies 
two sides of a quadrangle, with the principal front towards 
the south, one side being 147, the other 137 feet in 
frontage. At the three corners are massive square towers, 
with angle turrets and crow-stepped gables. Besides these 
towers, there are in the centre of the south front two 
other projecting towers, which at 42 feet from the ground 
are bridged by a connecting arch, eleven feet wide, the 
whole forming a grand and most impressive mass of 
masonry called the " Seton " tower, a magnificent centre 
to what is perhaps the most imposing front of any 
domestic edifice in Scotland. At the south-east corner 
is the " Preston " tower, built by Sir Henry Preston, and 
the earliest part of the building, dating from the four- 
teenth century. In the south-west stands the "Meldrum" 
tower, so-called from the succeeding proprietors (1440- 
1596). They erected this part and the whole range of 
the south front except the "Seton" tower already referred 
to, which is a later addition. The Setons succeeded the 
Meldrums and it is to Alexander Seton, Lord Fyvie and 
Earl of Dunfermline, that the castle owes its greatest 
splendours. Besides planning this tower, he ornamented 
the others with their turreted and ornate details. He 
also built the great stair-case, which is a triumph of 
architectural skill. It is a wheel or newel staircase of 
grand proportions, skilfully planned and as skilfully exe- 



144 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



cuted. The Gordon tower on the west was not added 
till the eighteenth century, by William, second son of the 
second Earl of Aberdeen. Its erection necessitated the 
destruction of the chapel. Here one may see how the 




Fyvie Castle, South Front 



Renaissance ideas were creeping in, especially the desire 
for balance and symmetry. Two of everything was 
beginning to be the rule. One wing must have another 
to balance with it ; one tower another to make a pair. 



ARCHITECTURE— MUNICIPAL 145 



20. Architecture — (c) Municipal. 

After a period of declining taste in architecture, a 
revival began early in the nineteenth century under the 
guidance of architects of genius such as Archibald 
Simpson and John and William Smith. A great im- 
provement was thereby effected in the general aspect of 
the city of Aberdeen, and their good work has been 
enhanced by that of their successors. It is necessary to 
repeat that it was long before the local granite came to 
its own. The earlier buildings of importance were all of 
sandstone ; to-day he would be a bold architect who 
suggested a sandstone building in Aberdeen. The use 
of granite exercises an indirect effect on architectural 
design. It lends itself to broad, classic, monumental and 
dignified effects, while its stubborn quality is a check 
against over-exuberance of detail, and fanciful, gimcrack 
trivialities. The plainness of the buildings was often 
remarked upon by strangers twenty years ago. The 
newer buildings are not without adornment. 

The County and Municipal Buildings (or the Town- 
House as it is familiarly called) on the south side of 
Castle Street were opened in 1870. They form a 
magnificent pile which takes a high place amongst pro- 
vincial town-halls, as regards both vigour and originality 
of treatment. The line of elliptical arches on the ground 
floor and of small arcaded windows in the floor above 
make an imposing front. The great tower, which rises 
to a height of 200 feet and dominates the whole city, has 

M. A. 10 



146 ABERDEENSHIRE 

the castellated turrets which we have seen to be charac- 
teristic of Scottish architecture. It is curious to see how 
latter-day architects have not been able to get away from 
this feature. It is conspicuous even in such buildings as 
the Grammar School and the new Post Office. The 




Municipal Buildings, Aberdeen, and Town Cross 

Municipal tower, if somewhat heavy-looking, is on the 
whole effective. The small tower and spire on the east 
is the old Tolbooth tower, of the seventeenth century, 
preserved by being incorporated in the modern building. 

The next public building that should be mentioned is 
Marischal College, recently enlarged at a cost of nearly 



ARCHITECTURE— MUNICIPAL 



147 



^^250, 000. This is undoubtedly the finest piece of 
modern architecture in the north of Scotland, and one of 
the most handsome and graceful in the kingdom. The 
College at the end of the nineteenth century was a work 
of the Gothic revival occupying three sides of a quadrangle, 
with a tower in the centre of one side. This tower has 







" I' 



I |( 1111; nil ^Ktfrrrfr-rk-. p 
iilllkUII^HIMIIIlflUlftDi 

I im m m m 111 



f *••► 



.t i '> i « I •« 



Marischal College, Aberdeen 




been remodelled and greatly heightened so that it is now 
a rival to the Municipal tower in the same street. It is 
known as the Mitchell tower, in compliment to the donor, 
the late Mr Charles Mitchell of Newcastle, whose name 
is also associated with the public or graduation Hall of 
the University. The old frontage of Marischal College 
was a desultory line of commonplace houses, through 

10 — 2 



148 ABERDEENSHIRE 

which by a narrow gateway entrance was gained to the 
quadrangle. These have all been cleared away and now 
a stately pile bristling with ornate pinnacles that sparkle 
in the sun fills the whole length of 400 feet. 

No less impressive than the delicately chiselled front 
is the back view of the College from West North Sreet, 
where a dip in the ground displays to advantage the great 
mass of building, the Mitchell Hall with its great Gothic 
window, its angle-turrets and lofty buttresses. 

The Northern Assurance Office stands at the angle 
between Union Street and Union Terrace. The clean 
surface and clear-cut lines of the granite masonry are very 
pleasant to the eye. Union Terrace contains some of 
the best modern buildings in the city — the Grand Hotel, 
the Aberdeen Savings Bank, which though very simple is 
an admirable specimen of a front specially designed for 
granite; the Offices of the Parish Council and the School 
Board, original and striking, the Public Library, the 
United Free South Church with its graceful dome, and 
His Majesty's Theatre — all serve to illustrate the changes 
that are being rung on granite fronts in recent years. 

The contrast between these more ornate buildings and 
the severely classic simplicity of the Music Hall, a square 
block with a portico of Ionic pillars, belonging to the early 
nineteenth century, shows what a change in sentiment has 
taken place. The feature of all the Aberdeen architecture 
is the careful, conscientious workmanship, which always 
gives the impression of lasting solidity. The material is 
so irresponsive that withovit hard labour, no eiFect is 
produced. 



150 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



We can do no more than mention some of the other 
notable edifices in the city. The Grammar School, 
erected in 1863, is a successful application of castellated 
Gothic to a modern building — all the more effective that it 




Grammar School, Aberdeen 

is well set back from the street. The contiguous Art 
School and Art Gallery are modern buildings, each with 
an order of columns and a pediment which break the long 
low line of the fagade. The elliptical arch that unites 



ARCHITECTURE— MUNICIPAL 151 

them gives access to Gordon's College, the centre portion 
of which is a piece of sober eighteenth century work. The 
wings and colonnades were added subsequently. The Head 
Office of the North of Scotland and Town and County 
Bank at the top of King Street has its entrance porch at 
the angle with a colonnade of pillars. Near it is the 




Gordon's College, Aberdeen 

Town Cross,^a hexagonal erection with Ionic columns 
and a tapering shaft rising from the centre of the roof, 
with a heraldic unicorn as terminal. It dates from the 
end of the seventeenth century. In the panels of the 
balustrade are half-length portraits of Scottish and Bnt.sh 
Kings (including the seven Jameses). It is a fine example 



ARCHITECTURE— MUNICIPAL 153 

of its class and was the work of a local mason. The 
royal portraits are real and authentic. The Ionic screen 
or fagade between Union Street and the city churches 
gives some idea of the severely classic architecture that 
was the vogue in Aberdeen nearly a century ago. 

A word must be said about the chief bridges. Union 
Bridge has a span of 130 feet, and was built in 1802 to 




Old Bridge of Dee, Aberdeen 

facilitate the making of Union Street. It was originally 
narrower than the street and has recently been widened 
to meet the requirements of increased traffic. The 
Bridge of Don (Balgownie), probably built early in the 
fourteenth century if not earlier, throws its one Gothic arch 
over the deep contracted stream of the river. A small 



154 ABERDEENSHIRE 

bequest in the seventeenth century for its maintenance 
has been so well husbanded that out of its accumulations 
the cost of the new Bridge (^17,000), and other buildings 
has been defrayed, and the capital value of the fund — 
called the Bridge of Don fund — is to-day ^^26,500. The 
new bridge, much nearer the sea and with five arches, 
was designed by Telford and completed in 1 830. The 
Old Bridge of Dee (with seven arches) was founded by 
Bishop Elphinstone and completed in 1527 by Bishop 
Gavin Dunbar. In 1842 it was widened ii|- feet. The 
New (Victoria) Bridge, a continuation of Market Street, 
was opened in 1882, since when quite a new and popu- 
lous city has sprung up on the south side of the river, 
entirely eclipsing the old fishing village of Torry which 
formerly monopolised this side of the water. 



21. Architecture — (^/) Domestic. 

The mansion-houses of the county, whether they are 
ancient fortalices modernised by later additions or entirely 
modern buildings erected within a century of the present 
time, deserve more space than can be allotted to them 
here. They are of all types of architecture, classical, 
renaissance, and composite, but there is no doubt that the 
castellated, Scotch baronial, the traditional type so com- 
mon in the seventeenth century, still predominates. 

Foremost among them must be mentioned Balmoral 
Castle far up the valley of the Dee. Built in 1853 of 
a light grey granite found in the neighbourhood, it is 



ARCHITECTURE— DOMP]STIC 



155 



composed of two semi-detached squares with connecting 
wings, and displays the usual castellated towers, high- 
pitched gables and conical roofed turrets. The massive 
clock-tower rising to a height of 1 00 feet from amongst 




Balmoral Castle 

the surrounding leafage and gleaming white in summer 
sunshine forms a pleasing picture. The late Queen 
Victoria purchased the estate in 1848, and the Prince 
Consort took a great personal interest in the design the 
details of which are said to be modelled on a close study 



156 ABERDEENSHIRE 

of Castle Eraser, already referred to. For more than half 
a century it has been a royal residence and though many 
additions and alterations have been made in that time, the 
general picture of the edifice remains the same to the 
traveller on the Deeside road. Two miles below is 
Abergeldie Castle, which has been leased by the Royal 
Family for many years. Its turreted square tower, old 
and plain and somewhat cramped in space, serves as a 
contrast to the more spacious modern mansion. 

This region of the Dee has many mansions, Inver- 
cauld House, reconstructed in 1 875, is in the same manner, 
its chief feature being a battlemented tower seventy feet 
high. The situation of Invercauld at the foot of a high 
hill and backed by plantations of pine and with a beau- 
tiful green terrace stretching to the river Dee is probably 
unsurpassed in the district. As seen from the Lion's Face 
Rock, a perpendicular cliff on the south side of the river, 
this house of the Farquharsons makes a striking picture 
not likely ever to be forgotten. Farther up is Mar 
Lodge, the residence of the Duke of Fife, in the horizontal 
and English domestic style. It was built so recently as 
1898, and replaced a somewhat similar building destroyed 
by fire. Glenmuick House, built in 1873, is in the Tudor 
style, strongly treated and modified to harmonise with the 
rugged surroundings. The only other Deeside mansion 
we can refer to is Kincardine Lodge, recently built, a 
very fine building, based to a large extent on the plan of 
Fyvie Castle, which we have already referred to as the 
grandest castellated mansion-house in the north." > - 

Donside is not so well furnished with stately and 



ARCHITECTURE— DOMESTIC 



157 



luxurious manor-houses, but it has Castle Newe and Cluny 
Castle, the antique-modern Place of Tilliefoure, Fintray 
House in the Tudor style, Pitmathen in French Renais- 



^-"^ 




Cluny Castle 



sance, each in its own way a work of art. Midway 
between the two valleys is Dunecht House, which was 
built for Lord Lindsay, a great authority on Christian 



158 



ABERDEENSHIRE 



art, and of which the most striking feature is the great 
campanile in the Italian manner. 

In the Ythan valley, Haddo House, the residence of 
the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of the County, 
belongs to the period of the late English Renaissance, 




Haddo House 



but additions have been made from time to time. Cri- 
monmogate, Strichen, and Philorth are classic. 

It is a curious fact, w^orthy of mention, that the local 
masons have almost developed a school of craftsmanship, 
by the thorough conscientiousness and dow^n right honesty 



ARCHITECTURE— DOMESTIC 



159 



of their work. We have already remarked 'that Kintore 
and Inverurie seemed to be the centre from which the 
sculptured stones radiated. In the same region are the 




Midmar Castle 



group of castles, Castle Eraser, Craigievar, Midmar and 
Cluny (now destroyed), all within an easy radius of the 
centre. Castle Eraser and Midmar were built by a mason 
called John Bell, whose work was characterised by sterling 



160 ABERDEENSHIRE 

qualities. The art would almost seem to have been handed 
down through several generations of craftsmen, for the 
modern Cluny Castle and Dunecht House, as well as 
their chapels, besides other palatial and extensive fabrics, 
were built entirely by local masons, without any ex- 
traneous help. It seems as if the building art were indi- 
genous to this particular locality. 



22. Communications — Roads, Railways. 

In ancient times the chief means of communication 
between Aberdeenshire and the south was the old South 
and North Drove Road, which crosses the Cairn-o-Mounth 
from Fettercairn in Kincardine, and, passing the Dye and 
Whitestones on the Feugh, reaches the Dee at Potarch. 
It then ran along the hill to Lumphanan and on through 
Leochel to the Bridge of Alford, thence to Clatt and 
Kennethmont and along the valley of the Bogie to 
Huntly. 

There was another — a supposed Roman road — which, 
coming up from the direction of Stonehaven, crossed the 
Dee at Peterculter, and, proceeding northward through 
Skene, Kinnellar, Kintore and Inverurie, went on to 
Pitcaple. Thence it passed through Rayne and across 
the east shoulder of Tillymorgan to what has been regarded 
as a Roman camp at Glenmailen, and by the Corse of 
Monellie, Lessendrum and Cobairdy, to the fords of the 
Deveron below Avochie. 

Another ancient road crossed the mountains from 



COMMUNICATIONS 



161 



Blairgowrie by the Spittal of Glenshee, over the Cairn- 
well,^ Castleton of Braemar, and the upper waters of 
the Gairn to the valley of the Avon at Inchrory and 
thence by Tomintoul to Speyside. 

After the '45 General Wade adopted the southern 
part of this road as the line of his great military route 




Spittal of Glenshee 



from Blairgowrie to Fort George, but from Castleton 
he turned \o the east, went down the Dee valley to 
Crathie, and thence across the hills to Corgarff in Upper 
Strathdon from which he reached Tomintoul by the 
"Lecht." This route he completed in 1750. 

II 

M. A. 



162 ABERDEENSHIRE 

These roads had naturally to lead to fords in the 
rivers, and, when bridges came to be built, it was just 
as natural that they should be placed in the line of 
established routes. When the Bridge of Alford was 
built over the Don in 1810-11 and the Bridge of Potarch 
over the Dee in 1812-13, a new line of road was made 
across country to connect them. It went from Dess 
through Liunphanan and Leochel to the Don valley. 

The first turnpike made in Aberdeenshire was the 
road from the Bridge of Dee to the city of Aberdeen vi^ 
Holborn Street, which completed the northern section 
of the great post-road between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. 
This was in 1796. 

About the same time was made the North Deeside 
Road reaching from Aberdeen to Aboyne and thence to 
Ballater, Crathie, and Braemar, where it met the Cairn- 
well Road. Another was the Aberdeen and Tarland 
route, which went by Skene and Echt with branches 
joining on to those already in existence. One of these 
struck off at Skene, and, crossing the hill of Tilliefourie, 
proceeded to Alford. It was afterwards extended up the 
Strath by Mossat, and Glenkindie to Corgarff, where it 
met General Wade's road. 

The great post-road from Aberdeen to Inverness went 
by Woodside, Bucksburn, Kintore, Inverurie, the Glens 
of Foudland to Huntly and Cairnie on the boundary of 
Banffshire. It had branches from Huntly to Portsoy 
through Rothiemay and to Banff through Forgue by 
the Bridge of Marnoch. 

The Strathbogie Road from Huntly to Donside by 



COMMUNICATIONS 163 

way of Gartly, Rhynie, and Lumsden joined the Strath- 
don Road at Mossat. Though by no means the most 
convenient, it is still used as the route along which the 
mails are conveyed to Strathdon. 

The Aberdeen and Banff Road left the post-road at 
Bucksburn and passing through Dyce, New Machar, Old 
Meldrum, Fyvie, Turriff, and King Edward made for the 
Bridge of Banff. 

In the eastern district the most important route was 
that to Peterhead. It crossed the new Bridge of Don, 
and, passing through Belhelvie, Ellon, and Cruden, came 
to Peterhead by the coast. From there it went straight 
across country to Banff by Longside, Mintlaw, New 
Pitsligo, and Byth, thence over the Longmanhill to 
Macduff. Later a coast route was made connecting 
Peterhead and Fraserburgh, by way of St Fergus, Cri- 
mond and Lonmay. Another continuation of it was along 
the coast past Rosehearty,Pennan, Gardenstownand Troup 
Head into Banffshire. 

It was only during the nineteenth century that proper 
and serviceable highways were constructed. Prior to that 
time a few main roads had been made but side connections 
were few and badly kept, so that wheeled vehicles, if they 
had existed, would have been a useless luxury. Early in 
the eighteenth century wheeled vehicles were absolutely 
unknown. In 1765 the judges of the Circuit Court of 
Justiciary first travelled to Aberdeen in chaises instead 
of on horseback. The first mail coach did not arrive 
till 1798. It took 21 hours between Edinburgh and 
Aberdeen. Not till 181 1 did passenger coaches begin 

II — 2 



164 ABERDEENSHIRE 

to ply between Aberdeen and Huntly. Then only was 
it possible for the farmer to convey his products by 
cart, which superseded the pack-horse as a means of 
transport. 

The upkeep of the roads was secured by a system 
of tolls. Traces of the system still survive in the reno- 
vated toll-bar houses, which in some cases retain a window 
facing right and a window facing left to mark the approach 
of vehicles from either side. Aberdeenshire abolished tolls 
in 1865. 

The Railway system reached Aberdeen in 1848. Prior 
to that time for fifty years the stage coach plying between 
Edinburgh and Aberdeen had been, apart from the sea- 
routes, the only bond between this part of the country and 
the south. A few years later, in 1854, what is now the 
Great North of Scotland Railway was opened from Aber- 
deen to Huntly, and two years thereafter was extended as 
far as Keith. This is still the main line of railway in the 
county. It touches in its course Dyce, Kintore, Inverurie, 
Insch, and Huntly. By and by branch lines were con- 
structed forking off from it at various points; first from 
Inveramsay, through Wartle, Fyvie, to Turriff" and ulti- 
mately to Macduff" ; second from Inverurie across country 
to Old Meldrum ; third from Kintore up Donside by 
Kenmay and Monymusk to Alford; and lastly from 
Dyce through New Machar, Udny, Ellon to New 
Maud, where it bifurcates, one fork going on to Peter- 
head the other to Fraserburgh. This is the Buchan and 
Formartin branch. Recently a sub-branch was made 
from Ellon runniniz; to the coast and touchins; Cruden 



COMMUNICATIONS 165 

Bay, its terminus being at Boddam within half an hour's 
distance of Peterhead. From Fraserburgh, a light railway 
runs to Cairnbulg, Inverallochy and St Combs. The 
only other line of railway in the county is the Deeside 
line, which runs up the Dee valley as far as Ballater. It 
was begun in 1853, ^^^^ Banchory was the terminus till 
1859, when an extension was made to Aboyne; then in 
1866 it was extended to Ballater. 

The lack of population and the paucity of goods apart 
from agricultural products have handicapped the local rail- 
ways, which are far from prosperous. The chances of 
extension in other directions are very remote. Meantime 
outlying districts, such as Strathdon and Braemar, are 
served by motors. The holiday and tourist traffic during 
the summer months and the influx of sportsmen at the 
shooting season are contributory sources of revenue, but 
even these show no tendency to grow — a state of affairs 
due to the prevalent use of private motor-cars. 

Aberdeenshire has no canals and is never likely to 
have. Prior to the advent of railways a canal, designed 
by Telford, the great engineer, was constructed between 
Aberdeen and Port Elphinstone on the south side of 
Inverurie. It was opened for passenger and goods traffic 
in 1806, and continued to serve the district until the 
steam-engine sounded its knell. For nearly half a cen- 
tury it was a bond between the chief city and the centre 
of the county and, although it never was remunerative to 
the promoters, and provided a very slow mode of convey- 
ance, it was of great public service. The railway line to 
the north runs parallel at certain places to the track of this 



166 ABERDEENSHIRE 

canal, whose superannuated embankments may still be 
recognised, after half a century, at various points between 
Aberdeen and Inverurie. 



23. Administration and Divisions. 

In the twelfth century Scotland was divided into 
Sheriffdoms, where the Sheriff was the minister of the 
Crown for trying civil and criminal cases. The office 
was hereditary until the rebellion of '45, when its here- 
ditary character was abolished. Aberdeenshire has a 
non-resident Sheriff-Principal (who is also Sheriff of Banff 
and Kincardine) besides two resident Sheriff-substitutes. 
These deal with ordinary civil cases such as debts, as well 
as with criminal cases involving fine or imprisonment, 
but not as a rule involving penal servitude, except forgery, 
robbery and fire-raising. 

The head of the county is the Lord- Lieutenant. 
Next to him is the Vice-Lieutenant and a large number 
of Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace, but the 
chief administrative body is the County Council, which 
consists of 65 members. These elect the chairman and 
vice-chairman, who are designated respectively convener 
and vice-convener. County Councils were first established 
in 1889. The county is divided into districts, and each 
district has so many divisions, or parishes, which elect one 
councillor. Aberdeenshire has 85 parishes, which are 
grouped in eight districts : (i) Deer with fifteen electoral 
divisions, (2) Ellon with seven, (3) Garioch with six, (4) 



ADMINISTRATION AND DIVISIONS 167 

Deeside with six, (5) TurrifF with seven, (6) Aberdeen 
with nine, (7) x'Mford with four, and (8) Huntly with four, 
making fifty-eight electoral divisions in all. The powers 
ot the Council are to maintain roads and bridges, to ad- 
minister the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts, to appoint 
a medical officer of health and a sanitary inspector, to deal 
with the pollution of rivers and to see to the protection of 
wild birds. Previous to the passing of the Act of 1889 
the Commissioners of Supply were the chief governing 
body. They are still retained but have no jurisdiction, 
except in so far as they elect members to the Standing 
Joint Committee. This committee includes representa- 
tives from the County Council appointed annually and 
from the Commissioners of Supply, together with the 
Sheriff ex officio. The Standing Joint Committee has 
charge of the Police and controls all the capital expenditure 
in the county. 

Each district has a district committee consisting of 
the county councillors for the divisions of the district 
and of parish councillors selected by each parish council 
of the district. Each parish has in this way two repre- 
sentatives on the district committee, one elected by the 
electors and the other appointed by the parish council. 
This district committee is the local authority for admini- 
stering the Public Health Acts, but has no power to raise 
money — that being the function of the County Council 
as a whole. 

By a later Act of 1894, a parish council was estab- 
lished in every parish. The number of councillors in 
landward parishes is fixed by the County Council and 



168 ABERDEENSHIRE 

in burghal parishes by the Town Council. The parish 
council looks after the Poor Law and must provide for 
pauper lunatics, sees to the levying of the school rate, 
to the administration of the Vaccination Acts, and to the 
appointment of Registrars. 

The affairs of the county are therefore divided amongst 
three bodies, the County Council, the District Committees 
and the Parish Councils. Prior to 1890 the powers of 
local administration lay with the Commissioners of Supply, 
the Road Trustees and the Parochial Boards, whose func- 
tions are now vested in these other bodies. 

Each parish, besides having a Parish Council, has a 
School Board, which, since 1872, has administered the 
education of the parish. Education is free and compul- 
sory for all children between the ages of 5 and 14. 
The schools are of three types — primary, intermediate, 
and secondary. The intermediate schools provide a 
three years' course beyond the elementary stage, and the 
secondary schools a further course lasting for two years. 

The County Council now takes a certain share in 
educational administration, having powers to allocate 
grants of money to schools and bursaries to pupils. The 
training of teachers, which until recently was in the hands 
of the Churches (Established and United Free), has now 
passed to a Provincial Committee elected by various repre- 
sentative bodies. 

Every burgh has a Town Council consisting of Pro- 
vost, Magistrates and Councillors, who hold their seats for 
three years. The number of councillors varies with the 
size of the town. In Aberdeen, the councillors are elected 



ADMINISTRATION AND DIVISIONS 169 

by wards, of which there are eleven, each ward electing 
three representatives, one of whom retires annually. The 
Town Council of Aberdeen consists of 34 members, the 
Dean of Guild being an ex officio member. The Town 
"Council is the local authority for Public Health, and looks 
after the streets, buildings and sewers. It owns the gas 
works, water works, tramways, electric power station, and 
public parks. It regulates the lighting, cleansing, and 
sanitation. The Magistrates, who are elected annually 
by the Council, are the licensing authority, and form the 
police court for the trial of minor offences. 

The city of Aberdeen is not like Peterhead and Fraser- 
burgh included in the administration of the county, being 
itself constituted the county of a city, with a Lord-Lieu- 
tenant of its own, who is the Lord-Provost ex officio. 
It has its own Parish Council as well as its own School 
Board. 

Aberdeenshire is represented in Parliament by four 
members — two for the county, east and west, and two 
for the city, north and south. Some of the smaller 
burghs, Kintore, Inverurie and Peterhead, are grouped 
with similar burghs in Banff and Moray (Banff, Elgin, 
CuUen) to form a constituency called the Elgin Burghs, 
which returns one member. In addition, the University 
of Aberdeen shares a member with the University of 
Glasgow. 

There is still a certain amount of overlapping and 
confusion in the administrative divisions. For example, 
Torry, which is on the Kincardineshire side of the Dee, 
is really a suburb of Aberdeen, and as such elects members 



1 70 ABERDEENSHIRE 

to the Town Council, the Parish Council, and the School 
Board, but it has no share in electing a member of Parlia- 
ment for Aberdeen, being in that regard part of Kincar- 
dineshire, and voting for a representative of that county. 
There are other similar anomalies. 



24. The Roll of Honour. 

It is an accepted fact that Aberdonians have intel- 
lectual characteristics somewhat different from those of 
their fellow-countrymen, the result partly of race, partly 
and chiefly, we believe, of environment. We have already 
alluded to the amalgamation of nationalities that went to 
form the people of this north-eastern corner of the king- 
dom. Doubtless the Spartan upbringing that was the rule 
in the county served to develop sturdy character and good 
physique. The result is that the Aberdonian has distin- 
guished himself in all parts of the Empire and even beyond 
it. Not that he has often risen to the front rank of great- 
ness, but he is frequently found well forward among the 
best of the second-class. 

Their own county presenting no tempting openings 
for ability, Aberdonians have migrated from the narrow 
home-sphere in great numbers and have made their mark 
as administrators, medical officers, and even as soldiers of 
fortune. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the 
cadets of the great houses, exiled by the pressure of the 
times, joined the service of continental kings and rose to 
high rank in the armies of Sweden, France, and Russia. 



THE ROLL OF HONOUR 171 

Chief amongst these was James Keith, younger brother 
of the last Earl Marischal, anu born at Inverugie Castle. 
After serving for nineteen years in Russia, he joined the 
service of Frederick the Great, under whom he attained 
to the highest military rank as Field-Marshal, contributing 
to victories gained during the Seven Years' War and con- 
ducting the retreat from Olmutz. At the battle of Hoch- 
kirchen, when charging the enemy, he fell mortally 
wounded in 1758. Peterhead keeps his memory green 
by a statue presented to it by the Emperor William L 
It is a replica in bronze of a similar effigy in Berlin. 
Field-Marshal Keith is probably the native of Aberdeen- 
shire who has figured most largely in history. He was 
Frederick's right hand, and his military genius has been 
fittingly acknowledged by Carlyle in his great work. 

Another of the same type, though less eminent, was 
Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries, who fought both on 
the Swedish and on the Polish side, but ultimately trans- 
ferred his sword to Russia, where he rose to the highest 
rank, and on his death-bed was watched over and wept 
over by Peter the Great. He was born in 1635 at Auch- 
leuchries near Ellon and died in 1699. He was a perfect 
example of the successful military adventurer, one of the 
type so skilfully depicted by Walter Scott in Dugald 

Dalgetty. 

The county has been a prolific recruiting ground for 
the Army. After the '45 Chatham's device for breaking 
down the clan system and diverting the energies of the 
Hi<yhlanders into healthier channels by enlisting them in 
British regiments was an inspiration ot genms. In 1 794 



172 ABERDEENSHIRE 

the Duke of Gordon raised during a few weeks a regiment 
of Gordon Highlanders, which first distinguished itself 
with Sir Ralph Abercromby in Egypt, and did noble 
service also in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. 

In the work of empire-making in India and else- 
where, the Aberdonian has borne a notable part. He 
has shown ability to exercise a singular mastery over 
inferior races. Conspicuous in this respect was Sir Harry 
B. Lumsden, who formed the Corps of Guides out of the 
most daring free-booters of the North-West frontier of 
India. 

In statesmanship the county has been surpassed by 
other districts, and yet it has the distinction of having 
produced one Prime Minister — the fourth Earl of Aber- 
been (i 784-1860), who was responsible for the Crimean 
War, and whom Byron styled " the travelled Thane, 
Athenian Aberdeen." 

The ecclesiasts of distinction are too numerous to 
mention. Foremost amongst them was Bishop Elphin- 
stone, who, though not a native of the county, identified 
himself with its interests when he became Bishop (1483), 
founded the University, King's College, the light of the 
North (1494), and the church of St Machar(the Cathedral 
in Old Aberdeen) and was a pioneer in all that makes for 
educational enlightenment. He was instrumental in intro- 
ducing the art of printing into Scotland. His tomb is 
very appropriately in King's College, the centre from 
which radiated the beneficent influence of his life. 
Henry Scougal (1650— 1678), scholar and saint, son of 
Bishop Scougal and the inspirer of John Wesley, was a 



THE ROLL OF HONOUR 173 

student of Kind's College. He had not been long ordained 
in his charge at Auchterless before he was appointed to 
the Chair of Divinity in King's College. He died at 
28; but his Life of God in the Soul of Man is still greatly 
prized by lovers of devotional literature. Dean Ramsay, 
whose Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character (1858) 
is a classic in humorous literature and one not likely soon 
to be forgotten, was born in Aberdeen. 

In medical science the roll of eminent names is long 
and impressive, from Bannerman, who was physician to 
David n, down to Arthur Johnston, who after an aca- 
demic career abroad, cultivated the muses at Aberdeen, 
gaining fame as a writer of Latin verse. He was for 
some time physician to Charles L Born at Caskieben 
in 1587, he was rector of King's College in 1637, and 
died in 1641. Dr John Arbuthnot, though a native of 
Kincardineshire, was a student at Marischal College ; as 
the friend of Pope and Swift, and the wit and physician 
at the Court of Queen Anne, he is likely to be remem- 
bered. Another celebrated physician was Dr John Aber- 
crombie, who, born in Aberdeen, went to Edinburgh, and 
became head of the profession and first physician to the 
king in 1824. Others no less noted were Sir James 
Clark; Sir Andrew Clark; Neil Arnott, a contemporary 
with Byron at the Grammar School, and more famous as 
natural philosopher than as physician, devising skilful in- 
ventions in healing and ventilation ; Sir James Macgrigor, 
to whose memory a lofty obelisk in polished red granite 
was erected in Marischal College quadrangle. After 
standing there for years it was recently removed to the 
Duthie Park. Macgrigor was a pioneer in the humani- 



174 ABERDEENSHIRE 

tarian treatment of the sick and wounded in war, and was 
chief of the Medical Staff in the Peninsular campaigns. 

In natural science William Macgillivray is known by 
his careful and authoritative work on the History of British 
Birds. James Clerk Maxwell, who did so much for the 
advancement of modern Physics, was for a few years 
professor of Natural Philosophy in Marischal College. 
Dr Alexander Forsyth, minister of Belhelvie, invented 
the percussion lock, and Patrick Ferguson, a native of 
Pitfour, invented the breech-loading rifle. 

The county is remarkable for families with pronounced 
hereditary intellectual gifts. The most noted case is that 
of the Gregories, who sprang from John Gregory, minister 
of Drumoak. It has produced fourteen Professors in British 
universities, skilled in Mathematics, Astronomy, Chemistry 
and Medicine. One of them was the inventor of the re- 
flecting telescope. The Reids, the Fordyces, the Johnstons 
are other cases less remarkable, but still exceptional. 

Philosophy is a sphere in which the Aberdonian has 
left his mark. The greatest local name in this regard is 
that of Thomas Reid, who created tlie Scottish school in 
opposition to David Hume, and whose Inquiry into the 
HuTtian Mind on the principles of Common Sense was 
written while he was a Professor at King's College. 
Born at Strachan on the south side of the Dee, he was 
for a time parish minister of New Machar. Later he 
migrated in 1763 to Glasgow, as successor to Adam 
Smith. His Intellectual and Active Powers was written 
after his retirement in 1780. Other philosophical writers 
worthy of mention are, Dr George Campbell, who, be- 
sides his dissertation on Miracles, wrote a Philosophy of 



THE ROLL OF HONOUR 175 

Rhetoric ; Dr James Beattie, whose Minstrel is still read 
and whose Essay on Truth had a great contemporary 
reputation ; Dr Alexander Bain, an analytical psycho- 
logist, whose books The Senses and the Intellect and The 
Emotions and the Will contain the most complete ana- 




Professor Thomas Reid, D.D. 

lytical exposition of the mind. Bain was the first Professor 
of Logic at Aberdeen, and in conjunction with his pupil 
Croom Robertson started the philosophical Review called 
Mind. 

The sphere of imaginative literature is not the Aber- 



176 ABERDEENSHIRE 

donian's sphere. Criticism, Philosophy, History, Science 
are more in his way, and yet a few names can be given 
as of some note in pure literature. Foremost in time and 
unrivalled in his own department is Barbour, Archdeacon 
of Aberdeen (1357). He studied at Oxford, and was con- 
temporary with Wycliffe and Chaucer. His great work 
is The Brus^ the most national of all Scottish poems. It 
is instinct with the spirit of freedom, of chivalry and 
romance, and details the struggles, the perils, and the 
marvellous escapes of his hero Robert the Bruce, with 
great simplicity, vividness, and directness. Alongside of 
him we may place John Skinner, author of Tullochgorum^ 
The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn^ and other well-known 
songs. A native of Birse and for long episcopal minister 
at Longside, he was the father of Bishop Skinner. His 
fame rests on TuUochgorum^ which Burns pronounced to 
be the best of Scotch songs. Dr W. C. Smith, the author 
of Olr'ig Grange and Borland Hall^ was born and educated 
in Aberdeen. Dr George Macdonald, poet, novelist, and 
critic, author of Alec Forbes and other novels embodying 
local colour and illustrating Aberdeenshire life and dialect 
in the early part of last century, was a native of Huntly. 
The best known poet connected with Aberdeen is Byron, 
who spent some years of his boyhood in the city and 
short periods of the summer on Deeside. These visits 
to Ballater are reflected in his poem on Loch-na-gar and 
elsewhere in his work. He left Aberdeen at the age 
of 10 in 1798 and never saw it again. 

History is a subject that has appealed to Aberdonians. 
Dr David Masson's monumental work on Milton must 
be mentioned. Other historians are Joseph Robertson, 



THE ROLL OF HONOUR 177 

John Stuart, John Hill Burton, Bishop Burnet, who 
wrote the History of his Own Timr, Sir John Skene, 
and Robert Gordon of Straloch, antiquarian and map- 
maker, as well as his son James, minister of Rothiemay 
and historian of the early years of the Troubles. The first 
Principal of the University, Hector Boece, wrote histories 
somewhat credulous and imaginative but quite authorita- 
tive where his own times are concerned. 

Of painters connected with the district may be men- 
tioned Jamesone, Dyce, and Phillip called "of Spain" from 
his success with Spanish subjects. Architecture claims 
Gibbs, whose RadclifFe Library at Oxford, and London 
churches such as St Martin's-in-the-Fields, still stand a 
testimony to his art; the Smiths and Archibald Simpson 
have already been mentioned. Sculpture owns the two 
Brodies and Sir John Steell. 

Scholars like Wedderburn and Ruddiman, Cruden of 
Concordance reputation, Dr James Legge, the Orientalist, 
and Professor Robertson Smith, born in the Donside parish 
of Keig, editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Professor of 
Arabic at Cambridge, and one of the most learned pundits 
of his time — are but a few representatives of a long list. 

The thirst for education and the well-taught parish 
schools of the county contributed to bring about such 
results. The doors of the University have for centuries 
been opened by bursaries to the poorest boys, and in 
this way many who were endowed with capacity above 
ordinary entered the learned professions and rose to 
eminence. 



M. A. 



25. THE CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 
OF ABERDEENSHIRE. 

(The figures in brackets after each name give the population in 
191 1, and those at the end of each section are references 
to pages in the text.) 

Aberdeen (161,952). From being entirely built of granite, 
Aberdeen is best known as "The Granite City." The light 
grey stone gives the town a clean look which strikes visitors 
from cities built of brick or of sandstone. Its many handsome 
public buildings, banks, offices, churches and schools, all solid 
and substantial, and of great architectural interest, are un- 
doubtedly finer than those of any other town of the same size 
in tlie kingdom. 

The first historical reference to it is in the twelfth century ; 
later a charter was obtained from King William the Lion, 
granting the city certain trading privileges. Long before Edin- 
burgh and Glasgow had begun to show signs of rising to greatness, 
Aberdeen was a port of extensive trade, but its growth was slow 
until the dawn of the nineteenth century. In i 801, its population 
was only 27,608; in 1831 this figure had doubled, and in recent 
years, owing chiefly to the phenomenal growth of the fishing- 
industry, its progress has been rapid. 

Aberdeen lias long been a great educational centre. Its 
Granmiar School claims to have existed in the thirteenth century. 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 179 

Its first University, King's College in Old Aberdeen, was founded 
in 1494 by Bishop Elphinstone, and its second, Marischal College 
in New Aberdeen, by Earl Marischal in 1593. These were 
united in i860 as the University of Aberdeen. Since that time 
the buildings of both Colleges have been largely added to, and 
the number of professorships greatly increased. Its students in 
the different faculties, Arts, Medicine, Science, Law and Divinity 
are little short of 1000. 

Being the only really large town in the county, and for that 
matter in the whole north of Scotland, it tends to grow in 




The Old Grammar School, Schoolhill 



importance, and its business connections are ever extending. It 
is the focus of the trawling industry, and of the granite trade; 
while the agricultural interests of the county look to Aberdeen as 
their chief mart and distributing medium. Its secondary schools, 
its technical college, ilfs agricultural college, its University, all 
help to swell its population by bringing strangers to reside within 
its boundaries. In itself it is clean, healthy and attractively 
built, while its fairly ecjuable climate, its relatively low rain-fall 
(29 inches) and its equally low death-rate (14-2 per 1000) conduce 

12 — 2 



180 ABERDEENSHIRE 

to its popularity as a residential town. Bein<^ the northern 
terniiniis of the Caledonian Railway, and having excellent service 
to London by the West Coast, the Midland, and the East Coast 
routes, it obtains a large share of the tourist traffic; and the 
sportsmen who fish in the Aberdeenshire rivers or shoot grouse 
in the Aberdeenshire moors must all do more or less homage to 
the county town. 

The chief street of the city is Union Street created a century 
ago at a cost which was considered reckless at the time but which 
has been more than justified by the results. This first improve- 
ment scheme, which has been followed up by otliers in recent 
times, was the work of men vvitli a wide outlook. Prominent 
among the Provosts of enlightenment was Sir Alexander Anderson, 
whose name is now at the eleventh hour stamped in memory 
by the Anderson Drive — a fashionable west-end thoroughfare. 
Union Street is the backbone from which all the other thorough- 
fares radiate. It is broad and handsome and the buildings that 
face each other across it are as a rule worthy of the street. 
Union Bridge, one of Fletcher's graceful structures, with a span 
of 130 feet, makes a pleasing break in the line of buildings and 
permits a view north and south along the Denburn valley. Tlie 
northern view, which shows Union Terrace and Union Terrace 
Gardens with handsome public buildings, both in the foreground 
and in the background, is undoubtedly one of the finest in the 
city. The Duthie Park on the north bank of the Dee, the links 
that fringe the northern coast, the picturesquely wooded amenities 
of Donside, above and below Balgownie Bridge, the quaint other 
world air of Old Aberdeen with its lofty trees, its grand cathedral 
and the ancient crown of King's College, these are all elevating 
and meliorating influences that help to keep in check the 
commercial spirit that rules about the harbour-quays and the 
fish-market. 

Aberdeen can boast of four daily newspapers besides several 
weeklies. It claims the honour of having the oldest newspaper in 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 181 

Scotland — The Aberdeen Journal — established in 1748. (pp. 3, 8, 
II, 13, 20, 24, 37, 38, 39, 66, 68, 75, 80, 83, 85, 89, 91, 92, 94, 
95, loi, 102, 107, 108, 109, III, 126, 145, 162, 164, 165, 169, 
172, 173.) 

Aberdour (549) is a small village on the coast half-way 
between Troup Head and Rosehearty. Sometimes called New 
Aberdour to distinguish it from the parish, the village came into 
existence in 1796. The parish is very ancient. Its church, now 
in ruins, was dedicated to St Drostan, the disciple and companion 
of St Columba. Aberdour is tlie birth-place of Dr Andrew 
Findlater, once Head-master of Gordon's Hospital (now College), 
Aberdeen, and first editor of Chambers's Encyclopaedia, (pp. 39, 
62, 105, 1 19, 164.) 

Aboyne (1525), properly called Charlestown of Aboyne in 
compliment to the first Earl of Aboyne, is a picturesquely situated 
village on Deeside with a high reputation for its bracing climate. 
Near it is Aboyne Castle — for centuries the family seat of the 
Marquis of Huntly. In the vicinity are Lochs Kinnord and 
Davan. At Dinnet are beds of kieselguhr. (pp. 2, 8, 24, 31, 88, 
117, 119, 162.) 

Alford (pa. 1464), on Donside, is the terminus of the branch 
railway from Kintore and the centre of a rich agricultural district 
called the Vale of Alford. In the neighbourhood are several 
interesting castles — Terpersie, Kildrummy and Craigievar. From 
Alford the main Donside road leads up the valley to Strathdon 
and Corgarfl", from wliich there are passes both to Deeside and to 
Speyside. (pp. 27, 71, 113, 115, 134, 160, 162.) 

Ballater (1240), a small town beautifully situated on the 
north side of the river Dee, in a level space enclosed by high 
mountains, is 660 feet above sea-level. From Ballater coaches 
drive daily to Braemar, passing Balmoral Castle half-way. (pp. 2, 
8, 18, 24, 27, 33, 154, 162, 164, 176.) 




a 
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o 

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CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 183 

Braemar (502), properly Castleton of Braemar, is the 
highest village in the county, being iioo feet above sea-level. 
It^stands at the junction of the Clunie and the Dee, and is finely 




Mar Castle ' 

sheltered in a hollow amongst the surrounding mountains. 
Braemar is a fashionable health resort. Some 10,000 strangers 
visit it annually. At the beginning of the nineteenth century 
it was not much more than a Highland clachan. Now it lias 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 185 

spacious hotels with electric light and all modern conveniences on 
a luxurious scale. Six miles distant is the famous Linn of Dee. 
The Duke of Fife's Highland residence, Mar Lodge, as well as 
Mar Castle and Invercauld House, tlie home of the Farquharsons, 
are all in the vicinity. From Bracmar the ascent of Ben-Macdhui 
is usually made, and sometimes also Loch-na-gar. A road leads 
from Braemar up the valley of the Clunie and over the Cairnwell 
to Blairgowrie, (pp. 8, 21, 22, 33, 66, 68, 75, 112, 161, 162.) 

Byth (360), usually New Byth, is a village three miles from 
Cuminestown, and founded in 1764. It is a bare and treeless 
district. Near it are the hills of Fishrie with a large number of 
crofts given off by the Earl of Fife in 1830 to poor people evicted 
from other estates at a time when the fashion began of amalga- 
mating small holdings in larger farms, (pp. 91, 124, 163.) 

Collieston is a fishing village circling round a romantic bay 
near the parish church of Slaihs. Here in 1588 one of the ships 
of the Spanisli Armada {Santa Catherina) was wrecked. The 
fishermen still call the creek St Catherine's Dub. Several small 
cannon have been recovered from the pool. Eighty years ago, 
Collieston enjoyed a certain notoriety for smuggling, and the 
graveyard of Slains close by contains evidence of the deeds of 
violence that the contraband trade brought about, (pp. 38, 48, 54.) 

Culter, eight miles west of Aberdeen, celebrated for its 
paper-mills, which date back to 1750. This paper-mill, the 
first of its kind in the north, manufactured superfine paper and 
in particular the bank-notes of the Aberdeen Bank. (p. 89.) 

Cuminestown (466), a village on the north side of 
the Waggle Hill in Monquhitter, was established by Joseph 
Cumine of Auchry in 1763. Joseph Cumine was a pioneer in 
agricultural improvement. He planted trees and started the 
manufacture of linen. About a mile distant is tlie smaller 
village of Garmond. The villages were once much more populous 







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CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 187 

in the days when the spinning of flax and the knitting of stockings 
were rural industries, (p. 4°-) 

Ellon (1307), a thriving town on the Ythan, is the junction 
for the Cruden and Boddam Railway. It has a shoe factory and 
large auction marts for the sale of cattle. The Episcopal Church 
—St Mary's on the Rock— was designed by George Edmund 
Street and is a handsome building in Early English style. A 
prominent divine in the pre-Disruption controversies, Dr James 
Robertson, was parish minister of Ellon from 1832 to 1843- 
Later he became a professor in Edinburgh University. Ellon is 
a place of great antiquity. It was the seat of jurisdiction of the 
Earldom of Buchan, and there the earls held their Head Court, 
(pp. 29, 41, 163, 164, 171-) 

Fraserburgh (10,570) is the third largest town in the county. 
It is a busy, thriving place, being the great centre of the herring 
fishing industry in Scotland. It was founded by Sir Alexander 
Eraser, one of the Erasers of Philorth (now represented by Lord 
Saltoun). The Erasers are said to have come into England with 
the Normans. A royal charter was granted in 1546 erecting 
"Faithlie" as it was then called into a free burgh of barony 
with all the privileges. Sir Alexander Eraser was a great favourite 
with James VI and was knighted at the baptism of Prince Henry, 
1594: he was a man of enterprise; he built the town and the 
harbour and erected public buildings. He received from King 
James the privilege of founding a University in Fraserburgh, and 
a building was set apart for this institution. Not only so but a 
Principal was appointed in 1600. The College may have been 
active for a few years, but very little is known of its history. 
During the plague which raged for two years at Aberdeen, the 
students of King's College went for safety to Fraserburgh in 1647 
and, it is supposed, occupied the old College buildings. A street 
in the town is still called "College Bounds." (pp. 8, 38, 59, 61, 
76, 94, 95, loi, 102, 163, 164, 169.) 




The Doorway, Huntly Castle 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 



189 



Huntly (4229), tlic lar<;cst inland town of the county, is 
situated at the confluence of tlie Deveron and the Boyie. It is 
the centre of an extensive agricultural district^ — Strathbogie — and 
has woollen and other manufactures. In the vicinity are_ the 
ruins of Huntly Castle, the property of the Duke of Richmond 




The Bass, Inverurie 



and Gordon. The first Lords of Strathbogie, being opposed to 
Bruce's claims of kingship, were disinherited and their lands 
bestowed on Sir Adam Gordon, whose descendants became Earls 
of Huntly, Marquises of Huntly and Dukes of Gordon. The old 
castle of Strathbogie was destroyed after the battle of Glenlivat 
in 1594, but rebuilt as Huntly Castle in 1602. Huntly is the 



190 ABERDEENSHIRE 

birth-place of Dr George Macdonald, poet and novelist, (pp. 29, 
31, 91, 160, 162, 164, 176.) 

Insch (616), a village on the Great North Railway, with 
Benachie on one side, and the Culsalmond and Foudland Hills on 
the other. The vitrified fort of Dunnideer is in the vicinity, 
(pp. I 19, 164.) 

Inverurie (4069), a royal burgli at the confluence of the Ury 
and the Don. The workshops of the Great North of Scotland 
Railway were removed from Kittybrewster to Inverurie some 
years ago, thereby increasing the population of the burgh. It is 
one of the Elgin parliamentary burghs. The Bass of Inverurie 
is a conical mound, long considered artificial, but now ascertained 
to be a natural formation due to the action of tlie two rivers. 
Inverurie has paper manufactures. In the neighbourhood is 
Keith Hall, the seat of the Earl of Kintore. (pp. 27, 71, 80, 
108, 109, 113, 132, 137, 160, 162, 164, 165, 169.) 

Kemnay (948), about five miles up Donside from Kintore, 
is well known for its extensive granite quarries, wliich sent stones 
to build the Forth Bridge and the Thames Embankment. Near 
it is Castle Eraser, one of the finest inhabited castles of the county. 
Fetternear, once the county seat of the bishops of Aberdeen, is on 
the opposite side of the river, (p. 83.) 

Kintore (818) is a royal burgh of great antiquity. A mile 
to the west are the ruins of Hallforest, destroyed in i 639. Kintore 
has, in its vicinity, several ' Druidical " circles and sculptured 
stones, (pp. 27, 49, 108, 136, 160, 162, 164, 169.) 

Longside (392) dates from 1801. A woollen factory 
brought for a time prosperity to the village, but this has been 
given up and the population dwindles. Rev. John Skinner, the 
author of Titllochgorum, was for over sixty years minister of the 
Episcopal Church at Linshart, close to the village of Longside. 
Here also was born Jamie Fleeman, ' the laird of Udny's fool," 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 191 

a half-witted person whose blunt outspoken manner and shrewd 
remarks are still widely remembered, (pp. 163, 176.) 

Maud is the point where the Buchan railway bifurcates 
for Peterhead and Fraserburgh. Maud is a centre for auction 
sales of cattle, (p. 164.) 

Mintlaw (377) was founded about the same period as Long- 
side and the fortunes of both villages, which are three miles apart, 
have been similar, (p. 163.) 

Newburgh (537), on the estuary of the Ythan, was at one 
time notorious like Collieston for smuggling. Ships of small 
burden still come up to its wharf at full tide and sometimes 
proceed as far as Waterton. The bed of the estuary of the 
Ythan is covered with mussels, much used in the past as bait by 
the local fishermen, as well as for export to other fishing stations. 
The revenue from this source lias greatly fallen off in recent 
years — line-fishing having suffered from the rise of trawling, 
(p. 48.) 

New Deer (675) is a village established about 1805. 
Brucklay Castle, the seat of the Dingwall-Fordyce family, 
recently converted into a mansion of the old Scottish castellated 
style, and surrounded with tasteful grounds, is now one of the 
most charming edifices in the district. A mile to the west is the 
ruined castle of Fedderat. (p. 138.) 

New PitsligO (pa. 2226) is a village in the neighbourhood of 
the sources of the Ugie, and extending- for a mile in two parallel 
streets along the eastern slope of the hill of Turlundie. It stands 
500 feet above sea-level. The village takes its name from Sir 
William Forbes of Pitsligo, who founded it in 1787. Here a 
linen trade was at one time carried on; this gave place to hand- 
loom weaving and ultimately to lace-making. The Episcopal 
Church was designed by G. Edmund Street, and it is said to be 
one of the best examples of his work in Scotland. The manu- 



192 ABERDEENSHIRE 

tacture of moss-litter from the peat in the neighbourhood was 
recently started, (pp. 91, 163.) 

Old Deer (179) is prettily situated on the Soutli Vg'ie. The 
district has memories of St Columba and St Drostan. In 
the neighbourhood are the ruins of a Cistercian Abbey, and 
"Druidical" circles, (pp. 2, 105, 113, 115, 117, 123.) 

Old Meldrum (11 10) was erected by charter into a burgh 
of barony in 1672. It is well known for its turnip-seed. It 
used to employ many persons in handloom weaving and in the 
knitting of stockings. Both industries have fallen to decay, and 
the population tends to dwindle. There is a long-established 
distillery in the town. (pp. 108, 112, 163, 164.) 

Peterhead (13,560), tlie most easterly town in Scotland, is 
built of red granite. A century ago it was a fashionable watering- 
place, and used to be a whaling station. Now its chief industry 
is the herring fishing. South of the town a harbour of refuge is 
being constructed by convict labour, from the convict prison close 
by. The harbour of refuge will cost, it is said, a million of 
money and its construction will occupy 25 to 30 years. A linen 
factory once existed here, as also a woollen factory, which exported 
cloth to the value of ^12,000 a year. Both became extinct, but 
the woollen industry was revived and still prospers. Another 
prominent industry is granite polishing. At Inverugie Castle was 
born Field-Marshal James Keith, whose statue stands in front of 
the Town-House. The "Pretender" landed at Peterhead on 
Christmas Day, 17 15. Peterhead was erected into a burgh of 
barony in 1593 by Earl Marischal, the founder of Marischal 
College, Aberdeen. It continued to be part of the Earl's estates 
till the rebellion of 17 15, when the lands were confiscated. The 
Peterhead portion is now the property of the Merchant Maiden 
Hospital of Edinburgh, (pp. 8, 29, 38, 39, 41, 57, 66, 68, 76, 83, 
94, 95, 1 01, 102, III, 163, 164, 169, 171.) 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 



193 



Rosehearty (1308) is a misspelt Gaelic name of which Ros, 
a promontory, and ard, a height, are undoubted elements. The 
little town stands on the shore a mile north of Pitsligo^. There is 
a tradition that in the fourteenth century a party of Danes landed 
and took up residence here, instructing the inhabitants, who were 
mostly crofters, in the art of fishing, (pp. 62, 162.) 




The White Horse on Mormond Hill 



^ Alexander Forbes, fourth and last Lord Pitsligo (1678 1762) was 
a warm supporter of the exiled Stuarts and took part in both rebellions. 
After CuUoden, he remained in hiding, his chief place of concealment being 
a cave in the rocks west of Roseheartv. 



I\r. A. 



13 



194 ABERDEENSHIRE 

Strichen (1094) was formerly called Mormond, from the 
hill at the base of which the village stands. This hill owing to 
the comparatively level character of the surrounding country is a 
conspicuous feature in the landscape for miles. On the soutli- 
western side, the figure of a horse is cut out in the turf, the space 
being filled up with white stones. This 'White Horse" occupies 
half an acre of ground and is visible at a great distance. On the 
south side of the hill an antlered stag on a larger scale is figured 
in the same manner. This was done so late as 1870. (pp. 11, 
16, 38, 9I) 158.) 

Torphins (455), a rising village on Deeside, much resorted 
to by Aberdonians in the summer months, (p. 106.) 

Turriff (2346) is situated on a table-land on the north of the 
burn of TurriflF near its junction with the Deveron. Turrifi^" is 
midway between Aberdeen and Elgin; hence the couplet — 

Choose ye, choise ye, at the Cross o' Turra 
Either gang to Aberdeen or Elgin o' Moray. 

Turriff is very ancient, being mentioned in the Book of Dttr, 
under the name of Turbruad, as the seat of a Celtic monastery 
dedicated to St Congan, a follower of St Columba. The double 
belfry of the old church (date 1635) is really a piece of castellated 
architecture applied to an ecclesiastical edifice. The churchyard 
gateway is also Early Scottish Renaissance, (pp. u, 31, 40, no, 
112, 119, 163, I 64.) 



DIAGRAMS 



195 



Scotland 

19)639,377 acres 



Aberdeenshire 
1,261,971 acres 



Scotland 

4,472,043 



Aberdeenshire 
304.439 



Fig. I. Area of Aberdeen- Fig. 2. Population of Aber- 
shire compared with that deenshire compared with 

of Scotland that of Scotland 



Scotland, 150 Aberdeenshire, 1 1;4 Lanarkshire, 1:124 

Fig. 3. Comparative density of Population to square mile 



196 



ABERDEENSHIRE 




Fig. 4. Proportion of cultivated- and uncultivated 
areas in Aberdeenshire — practically 50*^/0 




Fig. 5. Proportionate area of Crops in Aberdeenshire (rgog) 



DIAGRAMS 



197 




Fig. 6. Proportionate area of Crops, Pasture and 
Woodlands in Aberdeenshire figog) 




Fig. 7. Proportionate numbers of live-stock in 
Aberdeenshire (igog) 



198 



ABP]RDEENSHIRE 



Scotland 

7,423,185 cwts 



Aberdeenshire 

3, 563, 254 cwts 



Fig. 8. Quantity of Fish (all 
kinds) landed in Aber- 
deenshire as compared 
with that of Scotland 
(1909), almost 50 °/o 



Scotland 

4,500,000 cwts 



Aberdeenshire 
1,661,768 cwts 



Fig. 9. Quantity of Herrings 
landed in Aberdeenshire 
as compared with that of 
Scotland (1909] 



dambvitigE : 

PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. 
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 



Blown Sand 




Mica Schist 
gi ]Graphitic Mica 
^Schists 



Reference to Parishes 
Aberdour 1 44 J/ii'erurte 



^ttsligo 

4 Fnascrburyh 

5 SiWieTL 
G Lonmay 

7 Crirrwnd- 

8 StrUhen. 

9 KbigEdward 

XI MonquhiUer 

12 Jfert-JJecr 

13 OUBeer 

14 £ongsid& 



17 5"Aain* 

18 logiBBuchan 

19 Jfloa 

20 Jl&£/i2idb 

21 ^vic 

22 Aucht&rLess 

23 Forgue 
M, 24 Drumblade 

25 Gzirnie' 

26 ^T^ofif 

27 5imii)' 

28 GoTtZy 

29 S/Qrnie 

30 JSnnethmont 

31 Jjtsch 

32 Gj]saImond 

33 JRiQme 

34 Dayiot 

35 Mddrvirv 

36 !Ki7n'e5 

37 Piftiy 

38 Jbvcnun- 

39 Bdhelvie 

40 NewJIdhjchar 

41 JVniT^^y 
^ZKeithaU&Sinkea 
4:3Bourtie 



45 Chapel of Garux^ 

48i«te 
49 Cfcut 
bOJajdimdair 

52 Oienbuckit 

53 Strathiion 

54 ^f^ivie 

55 Leochel & Cushnie 

57 ru^>TO»fe * Foriwi: 

58JI/brd 

59/&ig 

60 Tough 

61 Mbt^musU 

62 Qu^ 
63ii!£m/uiy 
64i£irUDre 
65ffinnaJiu- 
66i)ycB 

67 OUJ&WuD- 

68 S^NichoIas 

69 NevhUls 




Longitude Wk^st 3 from. ^re«nJf 



T/lc OuniiTulcie UjiiversUy Press 







GEOLOGICAL MAP OF 
COUNTY OF 

ABERDEEN 

English. MOes 



ScUlways , — ^ - Jivada. - * r^ i 
PadiamentaivDmsiDns EASTERN. 



Ccpjright , Georgclhiltp <t .S'on L^f^ 



